My Business Academia!
by Ragnarok Emissary
Summary: We have read some GREAT fanfiction where Izuku ends up in a different course at U.A. The support course, or even Gen Ed. But we haven't seen or heard much from the business course. Que Izuku, The Businessman. In which Aizawa-sensei hates illogical paperwork, Izuku has a creepy affinity for the stock market, and Katsuki says "dafuq" a lot. There will be OC's and and even action! R&R
1. Origins of a Superhero

**Hi there, thanks for checking this out! There will be OC's. I'm not a huge writer, but I had this idea a few nights back and I can't seem to get it out of my head, so here goes. We've seen some REALLY good fanfiction where good ole' Midoriya-kun ends up in a completely different study at U.A. High; namely the support course, and maybe the general Ed (I can't remember, if there is one, sorry); but what would happen if our favorite underdog ended up in the business course. Que Izuku, the businessman.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own My Hero Academia, don't sue me plz.**

Not all men are born equal. He'd learned it at a very young age.

No matter how hard he wished, no matter how hard he hoped, it never changed.

Izuku's family never really had a lot, though he'd never really noticed, being a toddler at the time, but when he was just about four years old, Izuku had just begun to notice little things that set him apart. When the other neighborhood kids got out to play soccer, they always had their nice new cleats and someone always brought a crisply colored ball. They had all laughed when Izuku slipped in the mud and fell while running with his grubby red sneakers. Izuku had good naturedly laughed as well, not knowing that he was the joke.

Izuku didn't mind when his mother would take him with her to the Bakugo's, he and Kacchan would play for hours on the ashen blonde's game system, later to find that his mom actually had to go to work and that he was going to be staying the night. It gave him and Katsuki plenty of time to play superheroes and stay up late imagining what their quirks would be when they grew in. Katsuki HATED the idea of secreting glycerin from his body like his mom, saying it would be super lame to try and save people with hand lotion, but Izuku tried to cheer him up, innocently thinking of all the cool things one could do with slick lotion. Those were some of Izuku's favorite memories growing up; he really couldn't wait to get his quirk. Would he breath fire like his dad had been able to, or would he be able to telekinetically move objects toward him? Or maybe he'd be able to telekinetically create fire? Or breath telekinetically to push objects toward or away from him?

But his quirk never came in. It had been devastating; the difference between mankind that Izuku was only catching hints of now became a huge chasm. He started noticing more and more how much less the world truly would think of him. Kacchan had been furious, popping mad even when he found out. Their little hang outs while Izuku's Mom was at work became awkward and sometimes even cold. Izuku had even heard Katsuki asking his mom if they could stop having "Deku" around. Mitsuki had furiously told her son that he was not to speak that way of anyone, no matter how less fortunate they were than himself. He told her to piss off, but he kept his mouth shut about it after that.

Then there were the debt collectors. Izuku never realized how poor he and his mom were until he was about seven. The Bakugos were out of town on vacation and couldn't watch Izuku while his mother was working the late shift; and so she had him do what no mother would ever want for her child. Stay home, don't answer the door.

They rang the doorbell, then they knocked. Then they knocked again, loudly. Then they started pounding on the poor apartment door. Eventually it got so loud that Izuku turned off the lights and hid in his bedroom; wishing for a hero like All Might to come and save him. When he awoke later, his mom had returned home, deep bags framing her tired eyes. She'd tried to play the incident off as some mean door to door salesmen, but Izuku knew better. Summoning all the courage his broken heart could muster, he turned to his mother and said:

"It's OK Mom, I-I'll find a way to save us!" He bit his lip as tears gushed from his overactive tear ducts. Inko-san rushed to hug him, her exhaustion forgotten, and joined him in his sobbing. Things hadn't been the same since Hisashi had died, leaving her alone with her son. Her precious, precious son. She worked day and night to keep their little apartment's lights on, but hearing her little Izuku speak so bravely despite their poverty made every hour worth it to her. Izuku sniffled and looked up into his mother's baggy eyes.

" . . . I'll be the hero that saves us!"

* * *

"Alright, alright, HUSH y'all!" The teacher berated his class as they stirred up a ruckus with their quirks. Izuku was pretty sure he could see his classmate with a stretching quirk wiggling his limbs around in three different parts of the classroom. Tired of being ignored, the teacher slammed a fat stack of papers on his desk with his speed quirk. Everything went quiet.

"Good! Now, principal says I need to hand out these career path worksheets so you lot can be sure you're looking to go to the right high school for your occupations . . . " The teacher's grim face quickly cracked into a winning smile, "As if! You guys are pretty much all going into the hero course, right!?"

The class roared their cheers, and the neatly stacked papers blew into random piles as the chaos resumed. The teacher would have ordinarily stopped this ruckus, but with it being the last day of class he decided to let them have their fun.

"Ne, ne, I heard Bakugo qualified for U.A.!"

"That's to be expected, he's got such a powerful quirk!"

"Eh, isn't Midoriya also planning on U.A.?"

Midoriya was busily scratching down some mathematics in his notebook, but perked up when he heard his name. He looked up to see half the class leering at him. He tried his best to pretend there was nothing wrong and went back to jotting down his balances in the notebook. He was just about to dot a period when the paper was roughly snatched off his desk, dragging an ugly pencil mark across the page.

"Dafuq you thinkin', Deku? Trying to get into U.A.? Don't you know that ONLY I am qualified to get in?" His childhood friend, Katsuki's face was only inches away as he snarled.

"B-but Kacchan, they said I could take the Hero Course Exam if I would like, and if I fail that the Business Course Exam is just a week later, and if-"

"NO ONE is getting in my way! You hear me, Deku?" Kacchan interrupted as his palms crackled, leaving ugly burn marks on the cover of Izuku's notebook. He made motion to throw the defiled book out the classroom window when Izuku prostrated himself at the boy's feet.

"Please Kacchan! I have work right after class today, if I'm late again they'll fire me for sure!"

Kacchan snorted, sneering down at the pitiful boy below him. The little runt had pulled THAT card. It was the only way he ever got Katsuki to ease up: to remind him that Deku was SO far beneath him that a simple action from the ashen blonde could ruin his life. It made Katsuki feel like dirt, moreover it made him feel like punching the dirt for having the audacity to have something in common with him.

He dropped the notebook, then ground his heel into the cover for good measure, then stomped off as the bell rang.

Despite his shame at his own weakness, Izuku clawed his notes off the ground and hustled his way off campus. He hopped on his trusty old bike and started riding on the left shoulder, looking for an opportunity to merge.

* * *

Work was work: simple peon tasks that no one else really wanted to do; and that's exactly what Izuku wanted. It gave him job security. He'd worked almost all of his adolescent life from the moment he was legally allowed. Even before he was allowed to be hired as an official employee, Izuku had scraped together as many yen as he possibly could doing menial tasks; mowing what few lawns there were around his humble apartment, even falling so low as to sell lemonade on the corner. He had a mission, and that was to take as much of the financial load off his mom as he could bear.

His grades had dipped when he started spending his time working a part time job after school, but had quickly shot back up when his mother told him she wouldn't let him work if his grades dropped. With all the time he spent studying and working he barely had any time for relaxation, and less still for his hobby of cataloging quirks. He had barely finished volume 8 of his notes "for the future." It was maddening sometimes, all the thoughts bottled up in his head without time to write them down.

Anyhow, there he was, washing the windows at the storefront, when a sudden resounding **KABOOM** blasted him straight through the glass, past the open door of the men's bathroom, landing face first in the mop bucket he'd laid out to start cleaning later.

Coughing and sputtering Izuku turned in fear, glancing wildly for his would be assailant. But there was none.

 _"Run for the fire exit!"_

 _"We need Heroes here on the corner of-"_

 **BOOM!**

Izuku's knees quaked even as he laid sprawled out on the bathroom floor as it registered what was going on. There was a villain! A villain was attacking the shopping district!

He was in danger, he needed to find a place to hide and stay away from-

 _"Hold still, will you? This will only take a few moments, then it will start feeling gooooood . . . "_

 _"GRAHH! DAFUQ!? GET OFF OF ME YOU BI-"_

 _"Now now, let's keep it T rated here, just surrender your body to me, little bo-"  
_

 _"DAFUQ!? RAAAAGH! GET! DA! FUQ! OFF! ME, YOU SLIMY CREEP!"_

That muffled voice . . . Izuku knew it. That was Kacchan! The villain was after Kacchan's body! Izuku curled up with his head between his knees, staring down at the mop bucket with his eyes wide in shock.

"Kacchan!" Izuku whispered hysterically, "What have you gotten yourself into!?"

He needed to run, to get help, but his legs weren't having it. He lurched against the hand rail next to the toilet, trying to steady himself.

" _I_ have to help." Izuku tried to steel his nerves despite himself, "but what can I do?"

He stared pitifully at his reflection in the suds of the mop bucket.

* * *

Katsuki Bakugo was having a pretty piss poor afternoon. Make that a pretty piss poor day, his Mom had mouthed off to him all morning about playing nice with other kids, his pitiful excuse for a punching bag had ruined the mood after class, and now this. I mean seriously, what dafuq!?

He was walking to the shopping district to break his old records at the arcade, when some black sludgy shit started pouring out of a manhole cover, croaking on about wanting his body for something. Seriously, those shitty plumbers should've been doing their job's and cleaning this shit up. Ugh. The things he had to do look cool.

 **BANG! *SLURP***

DAFUQ!? Now he was covered in shit and it was trying to wrangle it's way into his mouth and eyes!

FUQ! FUQ! FUQ! FUUUUUUUUU- **BOOM**

And so it went. That is until a deluge of hot, overly soapy water crashed down the shit-monster's, and by extension, his own face, effectively blinding them both. When his vision cleared he saw none other than Deku, garbed in his ugly ass work clothes, clawing away at Kacchan's crappy confines with his bare hands and a bristle brush. His face free for the moment, he screamed at the poor boy.

"DAFUQ YOU DOING, DEKU!? YOU'RE QUIRKLESS, GET OUT OF HERE, YOU'RE USELESS!"

"I know, but my legs slipped and moved on their own!" Izuku blubbered out, tears of desperation dotting his eyes as he scrubbed for dear life!

"YoOoour in the WAaaaY!" the sludge monster spread it's arms wide, Katsuki in tow, and made to blanket the cleanly teenager in a suffocating layer of vile sludge. Izuku scrunched his eyes and braced himself for the worst . . .

But the crushing darkness never touched him.

"Are you alright, my boy?" Izuku's heart skipped a beat, and a tingle ran up his spine, hearing the voice that he dutifully listened to on speaker in person for the very first time. He dared to peak up, his eyes meeting lofty gaze of the strongest man alive, beaming down at him with a confident smile. With only his left hand All Might withstood the slimy monster's advance.

"No need to worry! Why? Because I AM HERE!"

 ***WHOOSH***

With a single punch the dark creature practically disintegrated, the air pressure it caused creating a huge draft that parted even the clouds above. Izuku felt like he was dreaming as he clutched his bag, trying his best to keep it from being blown away in the blast.

"Ha ha ha!" All Might gave his signature laugh as the calm set in. Turning to Izuku, he was about to commend the boy for his bravery, when the teenager did as his beaten, scraped, and battered body naturally demanded.

He fainted.

* * *

When he awoke at the scene, Izuku was immediately checked by paramedics to make sure he was alright; apparently they were just about to load his body onto a stretcher and take him to the hospital. He quickly declined a ride on the ambulance, knowing the cost (though significantly less than our day) of such luxuries, and when his attendants reluctantly cleared him to go he made for a quick escape into the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of his savior: All Might, but the giant of a man had disappeared.

Slightly disappointed at not having a chance to get the man's autograph, but still feeling like a high flying kite, Izuku sought out his manager to get cleared to clock out early from work. On the way he noticed several pro hero's congratulating Kacchan for hanging in there so long against that grime monster; a couple of the heroes made eye contact and moved to speak to Izuku, but he quickly skirted them into the crowd, embarrassed at making their jobs more hectic.

Having been cleared from work by his manager, a burly man with a huge chin, he ran around to the back alley of the store and unlocked his bike. As he fiddled with the combination he heard a *plop* behind him. Jumping like a spooked cat, he spun mid air, only to see his notebook on the pavement. Not even realizing he had lost the bundle of pages, he leafed through it until his eyes skimmed the last page. Then his eyes bulged in glee and surprise!

 _"You inspired me today, young man!" - All Might_

Izuku rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't dreaming, but the autograph remained there, clear as day. He felt hope and excitement bubbling from his chest. Maybe someone like him really could make it as a hero!

Any pedestrian on Izuku's route home that was paying attention would have been confused by the goofy grin on the messy haired boy's face when coupled with tears of joy.

* * *

(Just a few moments prior)

All Might sighed in the manliest of ways as he read over the boy's notebook. It was absolutely packed with hero knowledge. Quirks of every shape, size, and caliber were cataloged in the off white pages. Not to mention all of the notes suggesting the lad planned to attend U.A.

It was truly impressive. Truly, truly, impressive. All Might had gotten a good vibe just from seeing the boy dash out of a burning building to save the Explosion Quirk boy, especially when he yelled out that his legs had "moved on their own."

He had almost felt impressed to grab the boy and tell him his secret right then and there, his instincts yelling "THIS! THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!" But something held him back at the same time. He barely knew the boy, he'd never seen the lad's forgettable face in his life; at least, not in any memorable way. Perhaps in passing at the convenience store. Maybe he'd seen the boy on his scraped up bike once or twice. But nothing to really judge the boy's character.

Until now. Now he had TWO pieces of evidence to prove the boy's character: the boy's selfless act to save someone else, and his strangely detailed notebook. Everything pointed to him as a qualified successor to One For All.

But something seemed off.

In the margins on every page there were little notes written, listed out below an underlined name and phone number. Each list varied slightly, but several words seemed to repeat: shares, short sell, invest, stop order. Even today's neatly dated entry held some of the same phrases.

 _Call Kakusa-kun #-###-###-####_

 _Kamui Woods - Short sell 500 shares, expect ~6% drop_

 _Mt. Lady - purchase 100 shares, stop loss 2600 yen per share._

 _Deathgoro and Backdraft, hold shares_

All Might sighed again, not sure what to make of the boy's apparent financial portfolio. Many a hero had lost themselves in the pursuit of money and fame. It would be catastrophic, not doubt, if One For All fell into the hands of one such hero.

So there he sat atop the rooftops, hmm'ing and haw'ing; he supposed he'd just have to wait. But perhaps he could do a little to move things along . . .

He flipped to the inside of the damaged book's cover, reading the boy's name aloud. He saw the boy enter an alleyway just below him, and so he made quick to return the boy's notepad. With a few added words of encouragement of course. Watching the boy's reaction, he cupped his chiseled chin.

"Midoriya Izuku . . . Hmm, I wonder . . . "

* * *

 **End Chapter 1**

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **So, I'm going to be completely honest here, I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out when I started, but I like it. I think . . .**

 **I'll also be completely honest and say that I'm a review whore. Everyone else is thinking it, but I'll come out and say it. I want input, I crave input, input is happiness. So, if you've got a second, let me know what you think. Typo's? Thanks! "Your chapter needs more substance?" Good to know! Seriously guys, I'm thirsty AF.**

 **Thanks guys! Hope you're having a great one!**


	2. Talk to Me

**Hi there again guys, and here's the next chapter. There is a lot of character development here as well as some early plot hooks, so hopefully the pace is alright for you.**

 **I also want to give special thanks and shout out to Nexxoo, Drakolf, and Guest-san for their reviews. This chapter will definitely be going into greater depth on how Izuku does business, but still leaving enough open ends to make a great story. It is definitely longer than the last chapter, and they probably will start getting longer in general from now on. Y'know, because I need to GO BEYOND, PLUS ULTRA!**

 **Disclaimer: I REALLY don't own My Hero Academia, but if I get enough stock in their agency, I just might one day . . . =D**

Izuku was physically tired when he turned off the street to his home complex, but mentally he was wide awake. It was only 4:30 PM after all. Usually the black haired boy would still be at work, dutifully awaiting 7:00 PM when he could clock out, doggedly trudging up the steps of his apartment at 7:30 just in time to start making a late dinner. His mom would usually bustle in around 8:00 and hurriedly shoo him out of the kitchen, doing her best to be a responsible mother when at home. This usually left Izuku with a couple of good hours to do his homework and write a little in his journal.

But not today. On the downside he wasn't making any money with his work's storefront caved in like a soda can that had been shot, but on the upside he had gotten to meet All Might! He had a signature from All Might! That alone made the bad news of the day worth it! Izuku didn't dare think of what the signed autograph was worth; when he was younger, in his moments of weakness he'd looked the very thing up on auction sites online. Ten years ago the bids for the number one hero's autograph were high, bordering on insane to to the child Izuku's mind, he could only wonder what they were worth now . . . Maybe he could - No. He wouldn't dare let his mind wander down that path. This autograph was signed to him, and he couldn't tarnish its memory by making a profit off of it.

These kinds of thoughts plagued his mind as he ascended the steps of his grungy apartment complex, his used but decent condition red sneakers scraping on loose concrete chips as he stepped. He remembered living in a house when he was younger, but after his dad had . . . He squinted out the tears in his eyes, avoiding the thought of his deceased father.

Fiddling with his keys at the door, he heard footsteps behind him. Turning he saw the thin, gaunt figure of his next door neighbor passing by, a bag of groceries scrunched in his bony fingers.

"G-good afternoon, Toshinori-san," Izuku stuttered out, trying awkwardly to figure out where to look at the man without giving the impression he was staring. His visual focus finally settled upon the wiry man's eyes, a piercing icy blue, now staring back at him with a perceived intense gaze.

"Yo," The man grunted before whipping out his own keys and briskly turning to enter his own apartment. Izuku followed suit with his own door, befuddled.

Toshinori-san was an anomaly to the Midoriyas. They rarely even saw him, and when his mom had cornered him to give him a (humble) housewarming gift it was a very brief, rushed exchange. The man was polite, as far as Izuku had heard his mom say, but also curt as if he was always in a hurry to be somewhere. To be honest this was probably the first time Izuku had even been around the man long enough to even exchange pleasantries. He didn't feel in danger around him, but it was uncomfortable for him to see someone that was probably even worse off than he and his mom were. It made him feel sick, almost as if his heart were in pain.

A buzz from his pocket broke Izuku out of his reverie. He'd received a text.

 _"Call when you have the chance tonight." -_ _Kakusa-kun._

It was the usual update for the week, Izuku deduced. Izuku smiled, for once he would have the chance to give the man a call at a decent working hour. Butterflies fluttered up his stomach as he dialed the number from memory. The butterflies always came when he was about to make a business call.

 _"Moshi moshi, Midoriya-kun"_ A base, rumbling voice picked up on the other line.

"Hai, thank you Kakusa-kun!"

 _"Ehehe, no need to be THAT stiff, Midoriya-kun, it's just a portfolio update."_

"Hai, thank you Kakusa-kun!"

 _" . . . Well, whatever. Also isn't it a little early to be calling in? You're not skipping out on work are ya?"_ Kakusa-kun's voice lightened up in a teasing tone on the other end.

"No, Kakusa-kun! You know I wouldn't violate our agreement! I was let off for the day due to unforeseen circumstances at the store. " Izuku stuttered, wondering if Kakusa-kun had seen the news and knew what he was talking about.

 _"Good boy, you've got to keep a solid job this time. A_ _nyway, I've got your totals for the week, care to hear them?"_

"Yes, please!" Izuku squeaked into the receiver, his stomach churning in expectation.

 _"Meh, most of it's boring stuff, but today was a pretty good one, slugger! I mean, honestly who would have predicted a short sell on Kamui Woods' Agency? They've been on the rise since day one! Kek, I can't help but smile thinking about it. Are you sure you don't have a luck quirk, kid? Or maybe you're just some sort of spy that gets insider knowledge on all these agencies . . . "_

"K-Kakusa-kun! I-I would never! That's dishonest! Wait, doesn't your quirk kind of do the same thing? Doesn't that seem kind of like cheating at your job as a stock broker? Oh, that was rude, I'm so sorry, Kakusa-kun!"

 _"It's kay, I've heard it all before. But still, having a gut feeling is not the same as seeing the future; it doesn't make me some sort of all powerful money making god, like people think it does. Heck, I took this job just because my gut said so; I don't think I'm really cut out to be a broker to tell ya the truth!"_

"Again, I'm sorry, it was out of my place to think that for even a second! Please forgive me!"

 _"It's fine, kid. Besides, working with you has been the best decision my gut has ever led me to! Kekeke."_

"Anyway, our totals, Kakusa-kun, I don't think I can hold on any longer," Izuku sheepishly brought the conversation back to it's intended course, his nerves no longer in a fritz. Kakusa-kun had a way of calming Izuku down, even if it was usually by distracting him with small talk. He readied his notebook.

 _"Ah, fine. So your short sell on Wood's agency stock wasn't quite a full 6.5 percent like you had guessed at first, more like 3.4 percent after Mt. Lady bagged the bogey that was causing a ruckus on the trams, but just after the explosive kid's incident hit the news up it dropped a full 9 percent. Lucky I had a feeling not to buy back quite yet on those! Bahaha!"_

Izuku let out a sigh of relief, he had never felt so gutsy as to play the market with a full 500 shares; only once before had he made a good haul on a trade around 300 shares, but they had been really cheap for a starting hero agency at the time.

Izuku could remember when he had first started this business of playing the hero stock market. When he was a boy he was always told that the government shouldered the financial burden of funding heroes and their agencies, giving rewards for daring saves and big donations to charity when things got rough, but it turned out that was only partially true. The government could only carry so much of the cost of maintaining heroism; what with the uptick in quirk related crime, supreme court cases and mass payouts for discrimination law suits, re-implementation of the country's infrastructure to account for quirked individuals with larger sized bodies, and the list went on and on and on . . .

And that's how hero agency stock came into being. Hero agencies divided their ownership into shares, selling metaphorical pieces of their agencies on public or private markets to generate the revenue needed to keep the hero initiative running. If someone owned two thirds of an agency's stock, they effectively became the head director of the agency, gaining power to decide the direction the agency (and the heroes tethered thereto). In the hero business one could question how much power that actually gave an agency head. The answer: it gave quite a lot. Big conventions featuring heroes, hero showdowns, game shows, tournaments, tv appearances, merchandise, and every other hero related service or experience was a goldmine ripe for plunder. The money raised did well to protect and fund pro heroes' operations, but also brought wealth and prestige to the agencies. All in all, the stock market system for hero agencies was an effective, if extremely competitive, system.

And Izuku loved it. Ever since he was a boy he had loved and supported heroism; while he couldn't afford a lot of All Might merchandise, or any hero's merchandise for that matter, he did his very best to uphold the values they stood for. If this system supported heroes like All Might, he would support it too. Though, he could only afford to put money in up and coming stocks - penny stocks in the hero sense of the word - but one day he would-

 _"-id? Midoriya-kun!? IZUKU BOY!"_

Izuku snapped out of his ambitions.

"Yes! Sorry! What was that, Kakusa-kun?"

 _"Ugh,_ _I'm not going to re-read that long, boring list again; I'll just text you a picture . . . "_

"Please, Kakusa-kun, what were my totals for the week again?"

There was a sigh on the other end, then the fluttering sound of a paper being flipped.

 _"Eh . . . about 242 thousand yen before my 40 percent cut, so after that . . . eh, about 145 thousand yen, plus change."_

"And the running total?" Izuku grinned, his heart leaping with joy at the profit this week. If he kept improving like this his goal would be in sight!

 _" . . . Meh, I'll text it with the paper. Good night-"_

"Wait! Please Kakusa-kun! The total-"

 _"Have you told your mom about our little agreement yet?"_

Izuku quieted down.

 _"Hmph, just remember, you've got to tell her before the end of the month. That, or I'll tell her about this deal we have going on, and believe me, I'm not very good with the whole tact thing . . . just ask my ex."_

"I-I'll be sure to tell her what we've been doing now that school is out," Izuku promised nervously. He wasn't sure what his mom would think. He hoped she would be overjoyed, but, as with most things Izuku did to earn money, she usually fought for him to spend more time having fun or making friends. She often said "I'll take care of us" with a tired smile. He really just didn't know what she would do when she found out he was playing the stock market under aged.

 _"Good. I want a signed note, or actually, better yet, have her call me if she's OK with this. No more hiding it kid. You've got . . . eh, about ten days left, starting now."_

 _*click*_

Izuku's butterflies were back, gleefully ticking away at his lurching insides. He looked up at the clock: "6:00 PM" it read. There was still so much time left, he wasn't sure what to do with himself. Maybe he'd surprise his mom with dinner when she got home . . .

* * *

So that's where he'd seen the boy before . . .

It gradually started making more and more sense to Toshinori Yagi as he sat down in his surprisingly comfy chair, nursing a cup of coffee. He'd made it a point to avoid close, personal contact with strangers in his true form. It was better that way, what with all the villains looking to carve his hide and anyone else's who knew him.

But really, that's where he had recognized the boy from? The coincidence was almost uncanny.

If he'd remembered correctly, some exhausted looking lady had dropped in to give him a plate of brownies when he had originally moved into his grungy apartment; he'd politely tried to wave her away but she, unable to read the mood, had just started chatting away as he stood there, gaunt cheeks and all, at his doorway. Other than being heart tuggingly awkward, it was . . . nice to have someone so cheerily speaking with him in front of his lonely little apartment. He didn't even dare give her a polite smile, knowing it was liable to terrify the poor woman. He just nodded as politely as he could, and when she was done he had closed the door.

He remembered bits and pieces of her conversation. He was sure at some point she had said something about having a son that she was very proud of, that he was working hard to get into U.A. High. Midoriya-Kun must have been that very same son.

It was evident, even in All Might's quick skim through the boy's notes, that Izuku Midoriya showed promise; promise as a Hero, no matter what quirk the boy had; promise as a support specialist with all the ideas for costumes and gadgets he'd written next to each hero profile in his notes; and promise as a businessman. Toshinori had been curious as to the marketing notes and stock market trades the boy had apparently been running; so he'd had an old friend dig up some data on the small time agencies that the black and green haired boy had invested in. It was surprising, just yesterday the Midoriya boy had pushed over 100,000 yen in profit on his trades. For a CEO or a prestigious hero it was barely chump change, but for a 14 year old boy, who he'd seen ride into the complex on a wobbly old bicycle not ten minutes ago, it was practically raining money.

Yagi had moved here to conceal his location and to throw off anyone trying to find his home base. It was a run down apartment in a run down neighborhood. He doubted any of the homes nearby held more value than the land they stood on. Everyone kept to themselves, and he was sure petty crimes and small time drug dealers holed up in some of the abandoned houses nearby. It sickened him, he wanted nothing more than to clean this whole block up in the name of peace, but it was the perfect cover. No one dared look into their neighbors, probably afraid of what they would find. No one would expect All Might to live in such a humble, shoddy, part of town.

He had chosen to live here for this very reason. But if Izuku was making so much money . . . Then why were the Midoriya's living in this run down apartment complex?

A buzz from his phone interrupted his pondering. It was Nedzu, calling through a secure line.

"Hai," Yagi rumbled into the receiver.

 _"Hai, hai, Toshinori-kun, it's good to hear from you!"_ Yagi could tell the principal of U.A. was smiling on the other end of the line.

"Yes, things have been kind of hectic lately."

 _"Ah, yes, so I've heard. Now I know you don't care for long phone calls, but I just wanted to see how your search is going. You know, for THAT person?"_

"This is a secure line, Nedzu-san, no need to be discreet," Yagi sighed into the receiver. "No, I haven't been able to find a solid successor yet, though I do have some good prospects."

 _"Oh? Anyone in particular that I should look into?"_

"I've done the research on a couple already, but one just doesn't make sense to me."

" _. . . "_ There was silence on the other end, but he could almost hear the anthropomorphic headmaster perk up, ready for his next statement.

"His name is Midoriya Izuku. He shows promise, he even dove headfirst into a sticky situation to save someone else."

 _"Hmm? Then what's the problem?"_

"I just can't get a solid feel for him. He's shown the grit to be a hero, but at the same time I can't figure out his motivation. If he had One for All, would he make the world a better place, or-"

 _"Or would he succumb to the greed that's sprung up in the hero system."_ Nedzu finished his sentence. Yagi could hear the clacking of a keyboard on the other end.

 _"Alrighty, here's what we know about your young friend here. Public record says that he's a straight A student, though a few were on the edge in percentage for a while, has worked a total of 1054 man hours at three short term jobs in the last year, and has never in fact been to jail over any criminal charges. He sounds like a splendid candidate so far."_ Nedzu's smiling voice carried a chipper tune across the mic.

 _"School records say that he has indeed applied to our Hero Course here at U.A. and that he has a pending application to the business course; waiting only for his mother's signature. He's set to take the hero course practical exam in eight months time, and that just about sums him up!"_

"And his quirk?"

 _"Oh? Did I forget to mention that? Oh dear, the poor boy has been classified as quirkless."_

Yagi was taken aback at that statement. The boy had no special power or ability, yet he wanted to apply for the Hero Course? He personally wouldn't dare recommend that to even the fittest of quirkless individuals, knowing full well what might happen to them if they went up against a villain with a powerful quirk. Maybe the boy had made a mistake applying to the wrong course, and was trying to change majors?

 _"Now, I know what you're thinking, and no - he has expressed every intention of taking the hero course exams. The student counselor has made several calls to verify with him, and he has remained adamant. Apparently the business course is his fallback."_

"Odd, but thank you, headmaster-dono. Also, are there any bank account records on him: stock broker accounts, money management profiles, anything like that at all?"

 _"Now why would you ask such a silly question like that, Toshinori-kun? Everyone knows that you have to be at least 18 years old to play the market, and young Midoriya-kun here is only 14 years old,"_ the fuzzy principal gleefully intoned, but his words definitely betrayed that he knew something he wasn't sharing.

"Nedzu . . . " Toshinori pressed.

 _". . . You're sure then? Alright . . . the family's financial accounts aren't pretty. The father passed away when our Midoriya-kun was but a child, but he himself was young too. No life insurance, they had a loan on a small house for the family, and pretty soon the debt defaulted to the mom. It looks like there's a bankruptcy on file. And here we are a dozen years or so later, dear Inko-san is working two jobs to keep the lights on in that tiny apartment building; has no real credit to speak of, at least, not enough to get a better place. It looks like she's been saving up a little though, has a couple hundred thousand yen in the bank, probably for a rainy day, or maybe even for her son's tuition here . . . Hmm, what to do?"_

"And the boy's accounts?"

 _"This is most certainly not public record, but he's been proxying the stock market through a broker named Kakusa Ichinan. Pretty sketchy stuff that, the law has no real fix on what's legal or not in this case; though I suppose the broker has claimed Izuku as his, and I quote "Third nephew, 6 times removed" and has assumed legal responsibility for the boy's financial portfolio. I don't see a signed release of liability from his mother though, hmm. Tricky . . . "_

"And how are his accounts doing?"

 _"Hmm, now that IS private, Toshinori-kun!"_ Nedzu adopted a teasing tone.

"And his family finances aren't?"

 _"Hmm, let's just say that he makes more than he does at his part time job and leave it at that."_

"Nedzu . . . "

 _"Nope. No sirree! I'm not budging on this matter, Toshinori-kun. If you want to know the boy's motivations, you'll need to be the one that asks him. And would you look at that, I have a meeting to be to with the board! Anyhow, thanks for chatting with me, Toshinori-kun. I'll see you in eight months!"_

 _*click*_

. . . Ugh. Toshinori Yagi respected the furry principal with All his Might, but at times like this he just wanted to roll the little critter into a fuzzy ball and stuff him somewhere tight. The news would be all over it though, and he'd probably regret it. Maybe.

Being the Symbol of Peace was sure hard sometimes.

* * *

Three days had passed, and Izuku hadn't heard back from work for the entire duration. He had felt slightly off coming home early after his incident with Kacchan, but now he felt positively out of place. He had rarely had enough time to study the insides of his eyelids during the school year, but now he had time to truly take in the unruly state of his apartment. The walls had cracks that he had never really regarded before, paint was chipping on almost every surface, and he could hear a tell tale drip coming from the faucet in the kitchen. It was unnerving.

Then there was also his deal with Kakusa-kun to tell his mom about his extracurricular activities with the stock market. His teenage mind just couldn't figure out a way to tell her that wouldn't end in her telling him to stop. If he stopped it was game over. He had other ways of making an income, but none had proved so lucrative as the hero agency market. He had a dream to make come true, he couldn't stop now. But still the obstacle his mother posed was grating at the front of his mind almost constantly.

That, and work should have called him back by now to give him an update. He wanted to call his manager and see what the status was on the store's repairs, but at the same time the man was probably busy and Izuku was loath to bother him. His manager wasn't a harsh man, nor was he nice, he just was his manager. He told him what he needed Izuku to clean and Izuku did it. Payday would come and the process would continue. It was a very bland story that repeated itself weekly.

Until now. Unable to take the stress of not knowing what was going on, Izuku dialed the manager.

* * *

Midoriya Inko worked a lot. She knew it. Her co workers knew it. Her boss at the cannery knew it. Her other boss at the clothing outlet knew it. Her Bosses' bosses were starting to hear about it. To her it was the thought of her darling little boy that kept her going. She made sure that he never went hungry, or homeless. His smiling face each evening when she got home was the highlight of her day.

So when she arrived home to see him with his head cradled in his hands on the rickety kitchen table, she was immediately concerned. He seemed to keep still, as though he had been in that position for a while. She came and stood next to him, rubbing her callused hand on his back.

"Izu-chan, what's wrong?"

". . ." He sniffled and pushed his head deeper into his hands. Inko didn't know what to do, seeing her son in such a state, so she knelt down and gently grasped her son's innocent face, pulling him to face her. At first he avoided looking at her, but she caught him glancing at the bags under her eyes and tired posture of her thin body. Had she been a housewife like she and her husband had planned, she probably would have gotten plump.

" . . . I-I don't know what to do," he choked out in barely a whisper, "I broke a promise with Kakusa-kun, I-I lost my job!" His eyes were bleary and red as he held back a new set of tears for the day. She immediately threw her arms around him, holding back tears of her own at seeing her son so distraught.

"Oh, Izuku, my little Izu-chan, it's all right," She whispered in his ear, "You don't need a job, you need to act your age, I'll take care of us for now."

"I need a job, Mom, I need to help you as best as I can, I-I-"

"My sweet boy, what did I do to deserve a son so good as you? But you're still so young, why don't you have fun with your friends for once? Why don't you go hang out with Katsuki-kun?"

He bit his lip, looking cute and pitiful to her, not wanting to tell her that he didn't have any friends. She would ground him from working for sure.

"Kacchan only wants to play in the evenings, and that's the only time I get to see you," He lied, ashamed. But to his mother, who was regrettably never really around, it sounded legitimate.

"Oh, Izu-chan," she didn't know what to say to that, all she ever wanted was time to spend with her boy too. A thought suddenly struck her, peaking her curiosity.

"Izu-chan? Who is this Kakusa-kun? What did you promise him?"

"..."

* * *

Well, that went about as well as he had imagined it would have. Worse actually.

His mother had pressed him when he tried to cover up what he had said with comically terrible lies. When he finally spilled the beans about his contract with Kakusa-kun she, in typical motherly concern, had told him that he was not to work the market with Kakusa-kun again. Her son could get thrown in jail for doing what he was doing for all she knew. Then she had guilted him hard core, asking why he didn't trust her to take care of him.

Things had been a little tense since then; they had quietly eaten the dinner he had thrown in the oven prior to her arrival, and he went to his rom to sulk. He was sure that what she had said had hurt her to say just as much as it had hurt him though, as she went to her room presumably to do the same.

* * *

A week had passed. Each dinner together was slightly less awkward for the mother and son than the last. True to his mother's demands, Izuku altogether kept away from Kakusa-kun for the duration, blocking texts and calls from the man.

A knock was heard at the door, just as the two had settled down for one such dinner together. Inko went to take the door and was greeted with the harrowing face of Toshinori-san from next door, holding a familiar plate with cupcakes on it.

"C-can I help you, Toshinori-san?"

"Ah-yes, I have this plate you dropped off at my door last time, and I thought it polite to return it." Yagi awkwardly handed the plate of sweets to Inko-san, silently cursing himself for not having All Mighty charisma at a time like this. His eyes scanned their living space for but an instant, and to be honest it was surprisingly even worse off than his own next door. What was that annoying dripping sound?

"A-ano, thank you, Toshinori-san! W-would you like to come inside? It isn't much but my son is home with me and-"

"I would be honored."

He was led through the peeling entryway into the kitchen, the nicest room in the house he noted, dinner had obviously just been eaten. The familiar Midoriya boy was seated at the table, nervously twiddling his thumbs.

"Miss Midoriya-san, you said your son was applying to U.A. High?"

"Y-yes, that's right! Izu-kun, would you like to explain to Toshinori-san here?" Inko nervously looked between the prominent stare that Toshinori-san had locked on to the boy, and Izuku's nervous reaction.

"I'm applying for the Hero Course, Toshinori-sir-san," Izuku shyly stated to the man whom he hardly knew, trying not to stare at his bony features.

"You don't have a quirk, do you?" Yagi knew that his inquiry might trigger a negative response, but he needed to know.

"That's right, sir," Izuku feebly squeaked.

"And you're still going to apply?"

"Well, it's been my dream ever since I was little to be a hero. And I know it's a long shot, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try," Izuku replied with an unusual determination for the boy, but his eyes carefully measured Toshinori-kun's reaction to his words, waiting for the raucous laughter that so many quirked school mates had parroted at his plans.

None came, the man's gaze remained steady.

"Would you like help training for the entrance exam?"

* * *

 **And that's it! For now. . .**

 **Again, any typo's or grammar checks, please let me know. I re-ascertain my position as a review whore, any words of advice, encouragement, or request are greatly loved and appreciated 3.**


	3. A Minor Setback

**Hi again, fellas! Here we are again, and it looks like you've stuck with me so far =D**

 **This chapter was a fun one to write, but at the same time a tricky one. Hopefully I kept the people who needed to be in character, in character. I'm looking to pick up the pace of the story a little, a lot of other fanfiction would be looong past this point in the canon series, but I felt like Business Izuku's hero exam should at least be given a little spotlight.**

 **Again, shout out to Drakolf and Guest-san for encouragement and insights into the story.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own My Hero Academia and am unaffiliated with it's maker, nor do I make any money off this work of fanfiction.**

The night had been a restless one for Izuku. His mind had been abuzz ever since his mysterious neighbor Toshinori-san had made his offer to train him for the entrance exams at U.A. Him! Izuku: he poor (in more ways than one) and quirkless young man that no one believed in! Until now.

The conversation that had followed came rushing through his consciousness every time he closed his eyes, sometimes playing through his head in acts, other times little snippets would flit across the stage in his mind. Apparently Toshinori-san had once been a pro-hero, but due to some sort of chronic injury he had retired "a long time ago," said in his own cryptic words. Yagi-san hadn't said what his pro-name was, and Izuku didn't know if the man had been retired for six months or six years; actually, thinking back he didn't know much about Yagi-san at all. But that much was to be expected, he supposed, their mysterious neighbor had only just begun to open up to the Midoriya's after all.

His mother had been apprehensive at the thought of a stranger spending a large amount of time with her child, but something in Yagi-san's frosty blue eyes helped her know that he meant no harm to her son. It was really explainable, she almost wondered if she had a latent sixth sense quirk for reading people. Inevitably she had said that it was Izuku's decision to train with Toshinori-kun or not, but seeing the glint of childlike glee that her son's eyes exhibited, she had a feeling he would accept.

And accept he did. Izuku may not have wanted to admit it, but he was growing more and nervous about the U.A. Hero Course Test by the day. Of course, the test was still ten months away, but Izuku didn't feel like even that much time would be enough for him to prepare. He didn't even know where to start, mental fortitude aside, his physical fitness had always left something to be desired when compared to the quirked individuals in his classes. Yagi-san's offer was just the thing he needed, at the time he needed it. That made the man a hero in his book.

Thus were the rambling thoughts of Izuku Midoriya as he lay in bed trying to sleep. Yagi-san had said to meet him at the beach in two days time, and to come wearing work clothes.

What happened the next night however, was a surprise and a shock that Izuku hadn't expected.

He and his mother were sitting down for dinner together, Izuku having cooked it with his newfound free time, when a curt, measured knock sounded at the door.

"Yagi-san must have forgotten something from last night," Izuku said as he stood to get the door. He was greeted with a familiar face, but not the one he was expecting. In the doorway stood a large man in a clean pressed suit, sunglasses donned with a gold and black floral tie neatly pinched together in perfect wall street cleavage, looming over him. If Izuku was to say honestly, the only thing that betrayed Kakusa-kun from his unusually neat appearance was the carrot orange hair, though combed back now, and his portly gut; everything else was almost completely unrecognizable from the man's usual appearance. When Izuku had first met him, he was wearing a large Hawaii shirt and a pair of khaki shorts.

"Good day, Midoriya-kun." Kakusa-kun greeted evenly, making more of a statement than a pleasantry. Izuku cringed inside, knowing that he had completely ignored the man for weeks at his mother's insistence.

"To you as well, Kakusa-dono," Izuku bowed his head in both respect and shame.

"Izuku, who is at the door-" Inko poked her head around the corner to the front room, and froze suddenly when seeing the meaty man at the door. Kakusa removed his sunglasses in a measured, graceful motion, and shifted his attention to her.

"Good day, Ms. Midoriya-san, I'm here to speak with you. May I come inside?" Kakusa-kun's words were polite, but had an insistent edge to them. Inko, though slightly stunned by the appearance of the unknown gentleman, nodded carefully. Kakusa's large frame lurched through the door in a strangely professional way.

"And would you be the Kakusa-kun that I've heard about from my son?"

"The same, miss. Would you care to sit down while we talk?"

" . . . I'd rather we talk like this, sir. I don't have much to say to you, after all." Inko stated soundly, an unusual sharpness to her tone, her eyes narrowed.

"M-mom-"

"Go to your room, Izuku." Inko hushed her son with a stern look. His shoulders slumped as he turned and left the room. Once she was satisfied that her son was gone, she crossed her arms and stared down the man before her in full mother-bear mode.

* * *

Izuku paced in his room, nerve wracked hands clutching at his face and hair. His mom rarely ever was cross with him, or with anyone really. The only real time he'd remembered her being genuinely angry with him was when she had found him skipping out on lunches at school to save money. The behavior had immediately stopped after a couple of minutes of scolding from the otherwise docile woman.

And now Kakusa-san was on the receiving end of that fury. It was all his fault really, he should have told her about his workings with the friendly stock broker, he should have invited Kakusa-san over to dinner and broken the news slowly. He should have. He probably would have under different circumstances. But he didn't. And now his ticket to fulfilling his dream was about to be chased out the door.

Izuku was loath to admit it, but he hated being poor. He knew how much his mother worked to keep the bills paid and food on the table. He knew that, because of the debts they incurred when he was younger, she would probably work until the day she died. He hated it. It wasn't his mom's fault their dad had died before he could make his fortune overseas. He loved his mother so much that he wanted to break her out of this entire situation. He wanted to take her away from all the bad things that they had to go through. He wanted to buy a house. Not just any house. A nice house, with nice things, good paint on the walls, appliances that wouldn't leak, and no bills plaguing away at them. But with his status as quirkless he probably wouldn't get very far making money as a hero. The stock market was the fastest way, and it was being taken away.

Izuku held his ear to the thin, plastery walls of the apartment, hoping to hear anything of the conversation on the other side.

 _"My son is not-"_

 _"With all due respect-"_

 _"I appreciate-"_

 _"He's a-"_

 _"How can I-"_

 _"I will take-"_

 _"I don't-"_

 _"Please."_

It was quiet for a while, and Izuku didn't hear anything more through the walls. Earlier there had been an edge to his mother's voice, but no volume. That was a good thing? Maybe?

*Knock Knock*

"Izuku, you can come out now." His mother's voice called through the door. Kakusa-san was probably gone now, Izuku thought as he exited his room into the hall.

"We're in the kitchen," his Mom called again. Confused, he made his way to the kitchen, suspense eating at him.

There Kakusa-san was, sitting haphazardly in one of the spare chairs at the table, sipping tea across from his mother. Izuku's expression was puzzled to say the least. He was sure that his mother would have ran the large businessman out of the apartment by now, but here he was.

"Come sit, Izuku," his mother patted his chair on her side of the table. Her expression had lightened up significantly, her tired eyes softening as she looked at him. He sat at the table, looking over to Kakusa-san. The man had removed his sunglasses, showing his friendly blue eyes.

"Izuku, I've talked things over to Mr. Kakusa-san, and he has something he'd like to speak with you about," Inko gestured to the portly stock broker, her expression soft and collected; completely calm compared to the stormy demeanor she had expressed at the start of the conversation.

"Izuku-kun, your mother and I have come to an understanding. Apparently when you had lost your job you didn't have a chance to explain everything as thoroughly as I would have hoped, but nonetheless I've gotten my point across." The ginger businessman explained in a professional tone that seemed almost foreign to Izuku; the man was always polite, but had an informal air about him even when on the phone.

"Kakusa-dono, sir. I'm sorry that I didn't contact you to let you know what had happened, it was childish of me to try and keep it from you-"

"It's alright, Izuku-kun. I understand why you did what you did; you are still a young man, living at home. Our contract still stands, with a few adjustments however; majorly that your mother now stands as your proxy client and assumes financial responsibility for your actions instead of me; can't say I disagree, it looks better on paper anyway. Regardless, I'm glad that your mother was kind enough to hear me out."

"If not for your manners at my door, I can't say I wouldn't have rushed you out," Inko gave a soft laugh. The man smiled sheepishly and clasped his meaty hands before continuing.

"Anyway, I've heard that you're out of a job, is that right?"

"Y-yes, Kakusa-san," Izuku meekly admitted, knowing that his agreement with Kakusa required a steady job.

"Is that so? Well, besides coming to talk to your mom about our partnership, I actually wanted to come and offer you a job at our firm."

Izuku paled in shock at the statement. Him? Working at a stock brokerage? Preposterous! Who would want him to handle their money-

"Weeeell, technically it's more of like a part time internship deal; coffee guy, errand runner, watch the pro's and take a few calls. That sort of thing, really," Kakusa continued, sipping idly at his tea as he watched the young man bow his head, holding back tears.

"Why would you do that for me? I'm nothing special, I'm sure there people with mental quirks that could do a much better job," Izuku almost whispered, stopping briefly to wrestle down sobs of joy.

"Listen, Midoriya-kun, I told you that I'm not very good with the whole tact thing, so I want you to believe me when I say this: you are a genius at this kind of work."

"B-but-"

"A _genius,_ " the portly man reiterated, "You're attentive, you think on your feet, you know what to do when you analyze a situation. There's no quirk for those traits, they're your own. The people at my brokerage would be lucky to have _half_ the business sense that you do."

Izuku couldn't hold back the tears, much like he hadn't been able to hold them back when Toshinori-san had told him that he would help him become a hero. The situation was like a dream, the kind he didn't want to wake up from. Someone besides his mother had seen him, looking past his poverty and his quirkless body, and actually gauged that he was valuable.

"Shucks, kid, you're making me want to cry too y'know," Kakusa-san's professional composure broke for an instant as he rubbed some of the red from his eyes. Then, when he made eye contact with the boy's mother, he coughed and straightened his features once more.

"Anyway, if you want the job I've got some paperwork here for you. It's gonna be Monday through Friday, 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM. The boss is expecting the interns to start working tomorrow though, and I really had to tickle his ear to let you on; you being so young and all."

"Excuse me, but might I ask what his wage would be?" Inko raised her hand politely, a curious expression donning her face.

Kakusa grinned.

"Oh? Dear me, I forgot to say! Starting wage is 1500 yen and hour."

Izuku gaped.

* * *

While training to become a hero, and receiving a relatively high paying job on the side, sounded like a dream come true, the realization of it all was more like a nightmare for Izuku. Toshinori-san had definitely not planned around the boy working AND finishing up the last of his middle schooling, and Kakusa-san had certainly not planned around Izuku being beat-to-death tired from his daily workouts with the "retired pro hero." Izuku still couldn't figure out which pro hero the man had been, he seemed familiar, maybe he was in his notebooks?

Yagi-san had begun Izuku's training by bringing him to the public beach at the edge of town, the one that everyone knew was a wash up for sea litter and used it as a dump site as an excuse, and starting him on the impossible task of clearing the junk out. Truly Izuku admired the man's passion for being a hero in the little things first and foremost, so he had taken on the task. It was hard work, harder than he had worked before in his life, and he had worked _hard_ at his previous jobs. His days as a junior handyman at a second hand appliance store had definitely helped prepare him for the heavy lifting he now had to do on a larger scale. The skills he had learned back then helped him even more when he found out that he could salvage parts and copper wire off the electronics and appliances he took apart to help move off the beach more easily.

 _"Never underestimate the power of recycling!"_ Izuku had said, huffing and sweating as Toshinori-san gave him a questioning glance. His mom gave him that same look when he brought the "junk" home to store in his closet.

School had been a blur, and Izuku was surprised that his grade's hadn't dropped much more than a few percent with how much sleep he guiltily snuck in class. Kacchan had left him be though, which, though Izuku wouldn't admit, was admittedly nice. He wanted to patch up their rough relationship since they were kids, but now the boy seemed to ignore him more than he would bully him.

Work at his new job had been rough at first, especially with his new co-workers watching him like a hawk as though waiting for him to step out of line like the adolescent they saw him as. Most of them had mental quirks of one type or another, some being good at hyper-multi tasking, others dealing with probability and chance. Then there was Kakusa-san: he was fairly well respected in the firm, but Izuku heard a lot of water cooler talk about him from some of the more intellectual quirk users. His quirk revolved around gut-instinct, bordering on the edge between chemical logic processing and divination. It wasn't the same as the probability engine minds of his other co-workers, and it made him a hot topic for them to try and figure out.

Though people didn't put a lot of stock in him at first, Izuku had proved to be quite the willing worker at the firm. Though everybody could tell that he was drop-dead tired from his physical labor routine, he still went out of his way to get the coffee and deliver the papers. Over the ten months that he spent there, his value to his co-workers gradually grew. Still it was only near the end of the last month of his internship that he was allowed to take a business call from one of the company's clientele; it was nerve wracking, and he knew that he stuttered a lot, but his co-workers had actually applauded him when the call was finished and the client's accounts updated. He cried a little then, to his embarrassment. His next calls only got better from there.

Things on the beach had turned out all right as well. Between dismantling junk for anything usable, from refrigerators to hot plates, and moving the gutted remains off the beach and into Yagi-san's old pickup for proper dumping, Izuku could never have expected to get as far as he did. He cleared the space on the beach that Toshinori-san had dictated, though he wished he could have gotten the whole beach like a real hero would have. His physique had definitely leaned out, definite muscles would show when he took off his shirt to examine himself in the bathroom mirror before going to bed. He definitely was starting to develop his mother's bags under his eyes though . . .

Yagi-san had congratulated him and shown him a picture of himself before his training. Izuku was surprised to say the least. He had considered himself physically fit before the ordeal of cleaning the beach, what with all the work he did beforehand, but now he felt like he was some sort of bodybuilder; though most body-builders would scoff at his physique. He felt more ready for the hero exams than he ever had.

The day of the exam Yagi-san showed up to wish him luck, but seemed strangely reserved. It felt to Izuku like the man wanted to say something to him, but was holding himself back . . .

* * *

"If you pass I'll kill you Deku!" Katsuki Bakugo made his appearance along Izuku's way to the exams. He'd kept his distance from the poor boy after the sludge incident, but it seemed to Kacchan that the green haired idiot was still planning on killing himself in the exams. He roughly bumped Izuku's shoulder as he passed him by, heading for the giant doors of the school.

Izuku's high for the morning's pep talk came crashing down.

It never had truly hit Izuku before how unlikely it was that he would pass the Hero Course exams. He felt prepared for the written portion, but the physical had always been nagging at the back of his mind. He had trained hard for ten months to get his body in tip top physical condition, but even in top physical shape he was not a viable match for just about any quirk user. He wasn't even sure what the physical exam was going to entail. And so he muttered as he walked along the sidewalk, planning against all the possible tests that he could think of, unaware that he was walking towards a set of stairs.

"Watch out!"

Just as Izuku's foot caught the edge of the step and his body started to hinge towards the ground, a hand caught his. But it wasn't the hand that kept him from falling. He felt odd actually, like there was something rising in the pit of his stomach, until he realized that his feet were just barely touching the ground at all! He looked past the hand clasped around his, up it's arm, and into the bright brown eyes of the cutest girl he had ever stood next to.

"Sorry to use my quirk on you without permission, but that would have been a nasty fall," She giggled at his stunned complexion. She must have used some sort of levitation quirk on him! Not that he could say anything past the incoherent babbling that followed. He thought he had managed to get a thank you out before she smiled, let go of his hand, and skipped off to the exams.

Once she was out of sight his mind rebooted, and he looked down at the hand she had grabbed.

"I-I just talked to a girl!" He cheered!

* * *

After a several hour long written exam, Izuku's confidence and self esteem were once again teetering.

Those had been some tough questions! The ones that had really confused him were questions that any instructor would say "there is no right or wrong answer" to; questions such as: "A group of 4 villains set fire to a building and guard the exits to keep civilians from getting out. There are three heroes on site, their quirks include flexibility, mind reading, and speed. How should they approach the situation? Izuku was pretty sure that question alone took him thirty minutes to answer. Luckily he finished just as the proctor declared the test over.

Now he sat next to Kacchan in a large auditorium setting, watching the groovy haired hero: Present Mic explain the rules for the practical exam.

Was that . . . Mario being displayed on the screen?

"AWW YEAH, Are you ready!? Combat points are given by the type and number of enemies that you defeat! So you'd better beat them up real good!"

. . . That was definitely a thwomp on the screen. And a goomba . . . Izuku rubbed his eyes, making sure that he wasn't delirious from his last test. Nope, those were definitely, honest to goodness, koopas, goombas, and thwomps on the screen. Izuku was surprised he had recognized them, back when he and Kacchan would play video games together Mario was just retro concept. He sheepishly looked over to Katsuki, wondering if he would remember those days; the boy scowled back at him. Izuku kept his musings to himself, silently afraid of agitating the explosive blond. What if Nintendo sued? A hand shot up in front of him.

"Yes, young man?" Present Mic called on the young man who had raised his hand.

"Sensei! I believe there is a typo your flyer! You have only explained three different types of proxy villains, but there is a fourth one shaded in! I would personally expect U.A. to keep track of data like this in the future to avoid miscommunication!"

"Ah, yes, young man! The reason that there are only three villain robots shown is because the fourth is what we call a zero-pointer. It's more of an obstacle. Seriously, you should just run away if you see it, because it's the most powerful of the four. Also, you are?"

"Iida Tenya, sir! I apologize for my misunderstanding!"

"Ah, no it's fine!" Present Mic flashed a dazzling smile. "Anyway, you all will be assigned to different groups at different battle zones to keep you on your toes! Just remember, a hero goes beyond! PLUS ULTRA!"

* * *

"So, Kacchan got assigned to a different station, huh? I guess that's so that people can't help out their friends on the test. That's actually pretty smart . . ." Izuku mused aloud before he caught a glimpse of the girl from earlier. Oh, good! He could go and thank her properly now for this morning! His features brightened, and he made as if to go to her, when he was stopped by the same Iida Tenya-kun from the auditorium.

"Surely you don't intend to go and talk to her and break her focus do you?" The lean, glasses wearing boy stared Izuku down intensely. Izuku was immediately flustered. Had he done anything to offend this young man? Oh dear, how should he apologize?

"N-no, I-"

"Actually, I noticed that you were staring rather blankly at the screen earlier. Are you actually here as part of the test? A saboteur to throw off our focus?" The accusations made Izuku flush at first, but in seconds he was in full customer service mode.

"I'm very sorry, Iida-kun! It was not my intention to break anyone's focus. Please forgive me," Izuku bowed deeply, speaking in measured and polite sentences. The engine-legged teen just sighed, before preparing to give an answer.

"Ok, START!" Present Mic cheered from his lookout post above the students.

There was a confused pause.

"Seriously, start! Time is ticking, people! You have ten minutes, starting 10 seconds ago!"

Then people started scrambling into the concrete city-scape, looking to find some robots to beat up, some using quirks like speed or strength to get ahead of the rest. It finally clicked in Izuku's mind that in real life people weren't going to wait for an epic moment to start causing mayhem, so the proctors had probably used this as an opportunity to teach the students a little anticipation. Then he started running for the entrance too, agonizing at how far behind the crowd he was.

* * *

"60 seconds left!~" Present Mic hummed over the intercom of the city. Izuku could remember listing to the man't radio station at work, and had thoroughly enjoyed the heroic broadcasts, but now the voice in the microphone brought him only dread! He couldn't stop a villain robot. Not a single one! He had almost snuck up to one to disable it from behind when some laser shooting french guy came and blew it to smithereens. Did he just buck his hips at the air to fire that beam? No time to think about it. He had to get some points!

A rumbling sound caught his attention, and his heart sunk as a GIANT robot, literally the size of the buildings around it, rose up from beneath the streets about 100 meters away. He needed to RUN and get points now! He almost sunk into despair, a brief moment of weakness flashing through his persona. Why had he thought he could be a hero without a quirk? It made him sick with himself thinking about it.

Iida Tenya-kun ran past him, yelling at him to run from the giant machine of doom. He turned to do so, when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the same girl from that morning stuck underneath some rubble, crying out for help. The mecha was practically on top of her as it lurched towards the body of students that were running away. She was likely going to be crushed.

No. Izuku realized his folly in trying to be a hero with no real power of his own, but now more than anything he wanted to save the girl that had been so kind to him. So he ran. He ran straight toward the giant villain robot. He sprinted like mad with his lean muscles, ten months in the making, heaving out as much strength as they could. He breathed hard, but still was wont for breath.

*CRASH* The robot's hand smashed into the pavement near him, but still he ran for the trapped girl; she was clawing at the ground, trying to drag herself from the collapsed cement. The robot was practically on top of him as well now, looming above him like a colossus. Panting, he arrived at the rubble enclosed damsel and started clawing away at the concrete chunks, trying to find anything he could pull away to allow her to escape. When he found no easy way to remove her from the rubble, he opted to crouch down and clamor for a handle on the largest offending piece of man made stone. Then with a mighty heave he lifted, back straight like he'd been taught by Yagi-san, and the slab of concrete moved just enough for her to pull herself out. She scrambled to her feet just in time for Izuku to drop the heavy pavement back to the ground.

Their eyes met.

For a moment they cheered, almost lunging at one another to hug, but the hulking machine above them interrupted. The giant robot's hands came crushing down to squish them flat into the pavement when suddenly Iida Tenya-kun came blasting toward them, arms outstretched. Iida-kun hooked his arms around their waists and flew forward, pulling them away from their imminent demise.

"Aaaaand TIME!"

That was the last thing Izuku heard before his adrenaline failed him and he passed out.

* * *

A week had passed. Izuku had awoken after his near death experience in the school nurse's office. He had felt a strange suction on his cheek to find Recovery Girl placing one of her patented kisses on his face. That was a rather bizarre way to wake up. He had been cleared to go home, and spent the rest of his evening trying to explain to his mom what had happened without her going insane with worry. She was really a good mom to him.

He felt a little shell shocked for the first few days. The staff hadn't issued any test results, but he was pretty certain of the outcome. He dared to hope that by some miracle something would allow him to take the hero courses, but there was always a creeping fear that he had failed horribly.

Then, finally, the letter came. Technically it was more of a padded envelope with something slightly heavy inside. He was home when it arrived, but he felt like he should wait until his mom was home so that she could be nearby when he opened it.

His mother had reluctantly told him that evening that he should open it alone in his room and she would be there for him if he wanted to share it. His hands twitched nervously as he pulled open the envelope and removed a strangely thick disc shaped device. The strange metal box whirred to life as soon as his hands touched it.

 _"Is it on?"_ A slightly tenor voice rose from the device as particles of light began to form a screen in front of Izuku. There was a furry creature with a scar over one of it's eyes staring at him through the screen.

 _"This message is for Midoriya Izuku-kun. I am Principal Nedzu, headmaster here at U.A. High, Yoroshiku! I am sending this message in regards to your application and test results for our Hero Course:_ _Though your efforts to save a fellow examinee were admirable, unfortunately it was not enough to pass you for the course._

 _"Regrettably you failed the exam-"_

* * *

 **So, this chapter was hard for me to write. The fan in me really wanted to have Izuku end up in class 1-A and then be slightly different from canon, but the critic in me doesn't think that would make for a story worth reading when it keeps so close to the original. But that's for you to decide, I suppose.**

 **I resubmit my position as a review whore; I have thoroughly enjoyed all the responses that I have received. Remember, go beyond! PLUS ULTRA!**


	4. Not Your Average Business Course Student

**Whew! It's been a month already! I tell you what: time has been flying by, and I haven't had as much time to work on the story as I'd like. This one is a little more raw than the others, but I'm hoping it keeps you reading! I'm introducing some OC's this chapter as part of the business course, to be honest I'm at a little bit of a loss for people to add, I think I'm at a grand total of 6 people that actually have backstories; so if you have any ideas or concepts for quirks/individuals that would be interesting in the business course, please let me know.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own My Hero Academia or any of it's affiliates, nor do I make money of this work of fanfiction. Please don't sue me.**

Izuku looked from his school papers to the number above the giant door. It read 1-L, not to be confused with 1-J or 1-I, so he was now in the right place.

He was nervous. Among his short list of friends and acquaintances at this school, nobody he knew was also attending the business course. He almost wished he were in a class with Kacchan, just so he would have someone familiar to him. Were the students here going to look down on him for being quirkless? Would they read into his tired appearance and 2nd hand book bag? What if they-

"Ahem! Are you planning on going in?" A curt, baritone voice pulled him from his stupor. Izuku looked up to see that he was still holding his hand to the door handle, and that there were a couple of students in green uniforms standing beside him as though waiting to enter. The voice in question belonged to a tan young man with whitish blond hair; Izuku's attention was immediately drawn to the blue eye shaped design on the center of his forehead, and the teardrop patterns from the corners of his eyes. Those markings must have been related to his quirk, Izuku thought before jumping and opening the door, allowing his new classmates to pass him by.

"Thank you," the boy with facial markings stated as he walked past Izuku and into the classroom. Upon inspection, the classroom was just that: a classroom. Windows lined one side of the room and desk chair combo's were arrayed in a lecture hall style, each angled to face the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. The seats were nearly full now, and rightfully so, Izuku was barely on time.

* * *

 _"Now I know this must be hard for you to hear, and I want to point out that bonus hero points were assigned to you for your efforts to save Ms. Ochako, but the minimum requirement was not met. Ms. Ochako herself actually requested that you receive some of her own points in order to help you pass, but the facts remain that you did not pass the test."_

 _Izuku's heart felt weak. He knew it. He'd known it for a while. But he wanted to believe that something would happen, some sort of providence or grace would pluck him from his quirkless status and would help him fulfill his dream of being a hero. He wanted to cry, but felt it unmanly even in front of a hologram that couldn't see him. Had his training with Toshinori-san been all for nothing?_

 _"I do however have some good news for you! We've reviewed your credentials and past experience in the business field, and I'd like to offer you a scholarship and recommendation to our business course."_

* * *

Izuku blinked hard, as if squeezing tears back into his tear ducts. On the bright side he hadn't been required to take the business course exam, which the internet said was almost as borderline insane as the hero exam tests were. He had to remind himself every day that he was lucky even to have made it into U.A. at all, and with a scholarship no less! Izuku shyly pumped his fist as he walked through the doorway into his new life, looking meekly for a seat. Having arrived just as class was about to start it looked like all the seats were full, all except for one next to a pink haired girl who seemed to be staring intently at the instructor's door at the back of the class. She glanced his way for an instant, giving him a side view of her quirky eyes and the glowing yellow marks centered at her pupils.

The instructor's door opened. It wasn't blown open with great force, neither was it timidly pivoted on its hinge, but a strange pressure filled the room as a lithe woman with long black hair stepped into the lecture hall. Despite her low wedged heels, Her pace was measured, Izuku had seen many of his superiors at the firm use that pace; it was the gait of a person in charge. The entire class, though only moderately social before her arrival, was now completely silent; stunned as they took in the instructor's even gaze. With a smooth motion she placed her binder on the podium, straightened her pressed suit-coat, and addressed the class.

"Welcome to homeroom. As I'm sure you are already aware, this is Class 1-L and class begins promptly at 8:45. I would like to advise, however that five minutes early is ten minutes late in the business world; the sooner you master this, the sooner you will gain respect in this course." Her very voice commanded respect: it was neither a shout, nor a murmur, just a clear alto tone with barely an accent. Izuku couldn't help but tense a little as the unnerving pressure in the room intensified. "I am Ms. Kuroko Ayane, and I will be your homeroom instructor; I have only recently retired from the corporate world and this will be my first term serving as your teacher. Yoroshiku-onegaishimasu."

She bowed politely and the spell ended. Izuku took a deep breath, the pressure having left him. The second she had entered the room he had felt . . . afraid? Intimidated? He was sure that the other students had felt it as well, judging from the looks on their faces. Could that presence in the room have been related to her quirk? He began jotting down theories in his notepad. Maybe her quirk dealt with pheromones and fight or flight response, or perhaps she could exude an energy wavelength into the air? How much control did she have over it? Could she influence emotions in different ways?

"Ahem! Young man!"

Izuku jolted upright from his notes, and realized all the eyes in the classroom were on him, even his apathetic neighbor had fixed her gaze on him. Giving a confused babble and making a deep bow, Izuku asked what the question was.

"We are doing introductions, Midoriya-san," Ayane-sensei explained in a displeased tone, "Please state your name, basic function of your quirk, and your current major."

"Erm, Uh, Hi, I'm Midoriya Izuku, I have no quirk, and my current major is business I guess?"

"Ahem, any area of focus, Midoriya-san?" The instructor quipped.

"Ah! I'm sorry! No, mam, I'm currently undecided." He could see a few snickers from the class.

"Very well, next!"

The pink haired girl with glowing irises stood and addressed the class flatly. "Sakura Shian, Minor Mind Reading, Majoring in marketing trends. Also, you on the back row. Yes, you. Don't even think about it, I'm not interested."

Izuku followed her gaze to a equally sheepish and brokenhearted looking young man, who looked remarkably even more average than Izuku himself. Izuku blinked and the youth seemed to have shrunken into the peanut gallery, obscuring himself from view.

The rest of the introductions were a blur to Izuku, still red in the ears after embarrassing himself in front of the class; he wrote names down, and the names of their quirks for cataloging later, but didn't dare start to speculate on their function for fear of being called out again. He was sorely tempted to theorize about the tan boy with the facial markings, simply because he had said "palm reader" in reference to his quirk and nothing else. It made sense to Izuku that most of the class, save for a quirky young man who had said his quirk was silicone shaping (Izuku couldn't figure out why he was in the business course) and the people Izuku had missed, were mental quirk users: mind readers, clairvoyants, difference engines, and accelerated thought processors. They would do well in this sort of field.

"Alright, with introductions taken care of, I want to start an open discussion for the last few minutes of class. Please raise your hand before speaking.

"Now, the question: Why does U.A. High offer a business course?"

Izuku was slightly befuddled by that question, and he could sense confusion whispering across the students around him as well. Why _would_ U.A. offer a business course? The school was built specifically for it's hero course and support course, and also for the future administrators of said heroes and support specialists-

"U.A. is a school for elites, it would follow that they would also have an elite business course." Izuku hadn't even noticed his neighbor raise her hand, Sakura-san was it? Kuroko-sensei nodded, and looked out at the class, waiting for another response.

A few hands were raised, and the same sort of answer was given.

At some point a foreign exchange student, Izuku was pretty sure he said his name was Dick, piped up and said "Because heroism sells!"

The answers became more candid after that. It seemed to Izuku that just about ever student, out of the 40 or so students in the lecture hall had a different view about the business course, a lot of which came down to making money and being famous. Izuku wasn't sure what to think. It was puzzling. Making money definitely rang true as a part of business, but the general response around him wonder how much he really wanted to be a businessman; he felt surrounded by a pack of wolves. No. He wouldn't give up here, not after coming so far. This was definitely going to be an interesting semester for him . . .

"Ahem, class! The time is almost up, you have all spoken valid points, however I'm curious to hear Midoriya-san's take on the question as well," Hearing his name called by the instructor, Izuku jerked upright pointing to himself questioningly. Kuroko-sensei nodded as the class settled down.

Izuku gulped. It was quiet for a moment as he gathered his thoughts.

"I-I feel like the hero system is the best way to keep our society safe, a-and because of that businessmen and women need to work extra hard to keep that system running; it's our job to support the heroes as best we can." Izuku stuttered, feeling the eyes of the class staring him down as he made his stance known.

The class was silent for a moment, some, like his neighbor, looked at him with raised eyebrows, others smirked condescendingly, he was pretty sure he saw Dick-san snickering uncontrollably in the back row.

"That's what I was hoping to hear, Midoriya-san," Kuroka-sensei's voice stated calmly, a proud smile adorning her lips. It was offsetting to see their seemingly stoic professor smiling. She took a breath and continued, the strange pressure Izuku had felt in the room returned, commanding yet oddly bolstering as compared to the beginning of class.

"I want to remind you that I am new to the instruction scene, my skill set is conditioned to work with real life suppliers and marketing situations. However I want you all to know that, even through multiple multi billion yen campaigns I have headed, I have never forgotten why hero agencies exist. Soon each of you will be the lifeblood that drives the hero system forward into the next generation. Never forget why you do business. Having said that, you will be learning the practical ins and outs of the business world here in this course. My advice to you is to do as the school directs. Go beyond. Plus Ultra. That is all."

With that the bell rang, and the period ended. After the initial tidal wave of students lurched out of the classroom, Izuku stood to leave for his next period, "A survey of Product Developement," when a forced cough caught his attention. Kuroka-sensei was standing next to his desk, holding a folder.

"Midoriya-san," she addressed him, her dark eyes looking him over in a formal fashion. She opened her folder and began leafing through the pages.

"H-hai, sensei?"

"Am I correct in observing that your schedule has a period open?"

"Y-yes, Sensei, I wasn't sure what to emphasize in, so I've decided to do a sample of each major in the business course; unfortunately the market trends course has a prerequisite I wasn't able to take before transferring here."

"Ah, if that's the case I'd like to let you know about an opportunity you've been recommended for; it would fulfill your prerequisite for marketing trends if you decided to take it next term. Are you interested?"

"Yes! W-what would the course include?"

"I'm glad you asked, Midoriya-san. The course is more like an observational position for the school. As you may have read, the business course has activities based in venture capitalism, are you aware of what venture capitalism means?"

"I-it means investing in small startup companies with growth potential."

"Yes, and as part of those activities the hero course instructors assign point values to their students. We in the business course use these points to determine a theoretical stock value for these students, do you see where I'm headed with this?"

"I think so . . . You want to make a virtual stock market for the business course to practice with; if the hero course student's perform well and become more popular, their stock value rises?"

"Or vice versa, more or less. The business course can then invest in the market to earn prizes and points toward their final grades."

"But what does that have to do with me?"

"Ahem. You see, the instructor for one of the hero course classes has flat out refused to assign point values and submit the paperwork involved," there was a bit of an annoyed edge to her tone. "He has good rapport with the administration, and they want to keep him on as an instructor, so rather than take disciplinary action they recommended that I assign you as the liaison to his class. You would be expected to keep track of his students and adjust their point values appropriately, and reporting regularly to me."

"I-I'd be honored, but why me?" Izuku stammered, eyes wide at the implication that the school was putting an entire class in his hands. He was interested, and terrified. He'd never done something like this before.

"Your records here say that you have extensive experience in the Hero Stock Market and in the trading involved. You even took an internship at a respectable firm, under tutelage of a fairly well known broker, a Mr. Kakusa Ichinan?"

"Y-yes, but,"

"I believe you're more than qualified for this, and this is my final offer. Will you take this opportunity? Again, school credit will be supplied." She firmly asserted.

She felt he was good enough to do what she was asking for? What happened to the crushing aura that she had exuded in class? Izuku nodded, dumbly. She smiled, almost seeming relieved.

"Splendid. You would be expected to observe this class during your free period and at any school events where possible; feel free to work with other school organizations and clubs if you deem it necessary."

"O-ok, but sensei," Izuku curiously looked up at his instructor. "When should I start, and what class am I observing?"

She smiled, breaking the tense formality in which she spoke.

"Today, during your empty period. And the class is Hero Course 1-A, instructor Aizawa Shota."

* * *

"And you are?" The bloodshot eyes of Mr. Aizawa bore into Izuku's own, a stubbly frown stretching across his face. Granted, he had returned from his class' fitness assessment to find a goofy green haired kid sitting in his classroom, writing notes in a sketchpad. To Izuku's credit he had arrived when he was supposed to, only to find that the class had gone out to the P.E. fields an hour earlier.

"M-midoriya Izuku, sir! Kuroko-sensei sent me here to assess the class for the business course," Izuku timidly asserted, doing his best to look the Notorious Eraserhead in the eye; he was failing pretty hard. After what felt like an Einstein-minute-with-a-hand-on-the-stove, the tired hero vigilante grunted.

"Figures, that woman always gets what she wants," Aizawa-sensei quipped before beckoning for Izuku to stand in front of the class and introduce himself. Izuku could have sworn that he heard the man cussing under his breath about "illogical paperwork."

Class 1-A had just returned from their fitness exam and was still winding down and socializing when Izuku took the floor, so naturally no one noticed when he cleared his throat. No one noticed when he called out to the class for their attention. Everyone noticed, however when he frustratedly clapped his binder on the podium at the head of the class. Now with everyone's eyes on him, his tense exterior crumbled into a swift bow and he quickly began to explain.

"I'm Midoriya Izuku, I'm not a part of Class 1-A, but I will be seeing you around. I am part of the business course and will be in charge of evaluating each of your performances for the virtual stock market that the business course runs. I hope to work well with you, Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" Summoning his courage, Izuku bowed again.

"Oy, Deku! What did I say about getting into U.A!" Izuku froze and he could have sworn his neck creaked weakly as he turned to face the source of that outburst. This must have been the class where Kacchan was placed. This was Katsuki's classroom. Izuku was beginning to wonder if taking Ms. Kuroko's offer had been a mistake.

"D-deku-kun, is it?" A shy female voice interrupted Katsuki. Izuku looked and saw the girl he had tried to save in the entrance exams, and was flooded with relief mixed with disappointment. Relief that she had managed to pass the exam, and disappointment that he had failed to do so. Suddenly she was standing and bowing at her desk. "Thank you for saving me in the entrance exam!"

"I-it was nothi-"

"Midoriya-kun! I deeply apologize for my attitude toward you! If not for your efforts I would not have grasped the true meaning of the exam! For that I thank you!" Iida Tenya-san shot up from the nameless students, also bowing deeply. Hushed murmurs started to spread across the class.

"Yes yes, this is all very interesting, but there is still class to teach. If you would, Midoriya, please take whatever notes you need from the back of the class. You can ask the students more later if you so choose," Aizawa-sensei retook control of the class in a bored tone. As far as Izuku could tell, Aizawa-sensei didn't care much for the business course, but he didn't seem very fond of his own class either. Izuku mused this to himself as he went to find a seat in the back of the class.

"U-um! If you don't mind, this is my desk!" Izuku did a double take as he started to sit at an unoccupied desk, only to find that there was a set of clothes moving on it's own sitting in his targeted spot. Realizing that the clothes in question must have been worn by someone with an invisibility quirk, Izuku blanched and apologized before taking a different seat next to a small purple skinned student with big ball like appendages attached to his head, doubling as hair. The short student now next to him seemed to be leering at the female classmates. Izuku politely pretended not to notice.

Izuku jotted down idle notes as the class moved on; several times he caught himself imagining that he actually was a part of this class and that his failure to pass the exam was all a bad dream. Once the period ended however, he realized one thing.

"I have no idea how to assign point values to any of these students!"

* * *

"And you're here again, because?" The bloodshot gaze of Aizawa-sensei practically burned holes in Izuku's countenance.

"I-I'm here to keep the point values updated for the class members, I'll be coming at 3rd period every day," Izuku weakly replied.

"Hmph!"

And so it went every day. Izuku would arrive at class 1-A to take his notes about each student, sitting in the back row as quietly as a mouse, and then high tail it back to the business course building just in time for his product development class. A lot of the students were really nice too, Iida-san, Ururaka-san, Yaoyorozu-san, and even Kirishima-san were great to talk too in between periods, they'd even invite him to sit with them during lunch sometimes. Somehow Katsuki managed to keep to himself whenever Izuku showed up, barely containing his apparent malice towards the boy.

Kuroko-sensei had given Izuku some advice for calculating market points for his classmates, but ultimately the point values were up to him to determine. So, naturally, he put his all into assigning as realistic values as possible to the members of class 1-A. He was kind of proud of himself to be honest. If anyone at Kakusa's workplace had told him that he would be responsible for an entire class of heroes to be, he would have balked at the thought, but here he was. He'd gotten together with the school's librarian to pull up statistical reports of crime rates, and had even found a few studies on villain crime patterns and quirks that had been published to the school's database. With this data in hand he built a profile around each student, the types of heroism that they were suited for and the situations they would likely do poorly in, and then he cross referenced it with the current crime rates and types-

To make a long story short, Izuku figured out how to assign points to class 1-A's students. He realized now that if he ever wanted to play the virtual market here at U.A. he would never get to use these class members' data for his own market ventures. It saddened him a little, but it was a price he was willing to pay. The lectures on heroism in class 1-A were awesome, they kept Izuku's spirits up.

* * *

As for his own class 1-L things were going fairly smoothly. His ever stoic neighbor, Sakura-san, was ever stoic, he'd come to realize that the glowing dots in her eyes were actually question marks; not that he ever looked her square in the eyes. The transfer student named Dick had taken an odd interest in Izuku as far as he could tell, the young man was ALWAYS around when Izuku was looking for him; his generic face would fade into the crowd if Izuku ever saw him at lunch, but he was there. He'd made no motion to hurt Izuku either though, so the green haired boy was at somewhat of a loss as to what to do with him.

He'd been trying to learn his classmates' names, but it was hard to keep track of who was who in which class, especially with how busy Izuku was.

He still called in trades every now and then to the firm, but his after school employ was virtually over. No, the homework for the business course now dominated his time at home, if only slightly less than working after school had before.

One of his favorite classes so far was actually product development, with hero management as a very close second. It was amazing to Izuku all the things that were made and designed by people in the business course, in fact he saw that a lot of support students minored in product development to prepare them for work in an agency environment.

Then the first project of the semester came along, and Izuku's peaceful status as a quiet nobody from the business course came to an abrupt end.

"Here we are: workshop 1-H!" Izuku's semi-young product development teacher (Dr. Grenzen . . . los? It was hard to pronounce in Japanese) heralded their arrival to the support course's lab as the garage door mechanism rattled open. Immediately Izuku could see why they were asked to change out of their school uniforms for today's class. The entire workshop, though full of amazing equipment was caked in all sorts of grease; white grease, yellow grease, black grease. Izuku could appreciate grease though, after all he had worked as a handyman's assistant a year back, and his time cleaning trash with Toshinori-san had only built on that. He definitely saw a few of the other students gag though. A couple dozen support course students were milling about with the equipment when the doors had opened, but now they all faced the incoming class.

"Welcome to our workshop," their instructor, a man with a square metal helmet and claws for fingers greeted them. It took Izuku only a moment to realize he was standing in front of the retired pro hero, Power Loader; he had to hold himself back from asking for an autograph.

Both instructors took places at the head of the class and began to explain.

"Today's exercise is the start of the first major project of the term," Gren-sensei started, addressing the class.

"You in the Support Design course will be working with You in the Product Development course to create a working, marketable product, that can be used in the hero scene." Power Loader finished, pointing at each group of students. Izuku secretly wondered if they had practiced beforehand.

"The rules are simple, your device cannot be used to inflict lasting damage to an individual, but rather to aid in an aspect of heroism of your choice!" Gren-sensei took over.

"You will divide into groups of two for the remainder of this project." Power Loader supplied.

"Well, what are you waiting for, get makin'!" They both resounded in unison.

Immediately students started scrambling on both sides of the classroom, eager to begin. Izuku made his way to the Support Course students, but between his timid nature and was always cut off before he could ask to partner with someone.

"Just think of it like the firm," Izuku told himself, thinking back to the steady environment when he was working with Kakusa-san at his office. He pumped his fist and straightened his face, just in time for everyone in the class to have picked their partners.

"A-ano! Can someone partner with me?" Izuku made his voice known in the crowd, but everyone seemed busy discussing their prospects for the upcoming project. Izuku was reminded of his lonely days back in middle school; no one wanted to partner with him then either.

"Fear not! I, Hatsume Mei, will be your partner!" An exuberant voice rang out, and Izuku found himself staring at the cross-haired eyes of the speaker in question. She had pink hair and golden eyes, the pupils of which were literally shaped like cross-hairs, and was giving him a wide and strangely distant gaze. Izuku barely notice the rest of the class sigh in relief. What for, he did not know.

"T-thank you! I'm Midoriya Izuku, I'll be in your care," he bowed systematically. The strange girl clapped her hand on his shoulder while he was in mid bow.

"Mido-chan, then! Or would you prefer Riya-chan? Ah, you're a boy, so Mido-chan it is! Perfect! Just marvelous!" She then clasped her hands and tilted her head downward in a sinister gaze, "So, Mido-chan, what sort of baby should we make?"

Izuku coughed, his eyes widened in panic!

"B-b-b-b-baby!?"

"Precisely! I already have six in this class, and I'm going to just keep cranking them out!" She moved her hands around her sides in a cranking motion. Izuku blushed deeply and wildly scanned the class, looking for anyone that could have possibly produced b-b-b-babies with this apparent deviant.

"See! This one's a hyper compressor, it can store a MASSIVE amount of oxygen in a CRAZY small space! Really useful for porting power tools!" She practically shoved a strangely pill shaped piece of metal into his hands, roughly the size of a couple of soda cans stacked together.

Izuku blinked, the reality of the matter dawning upon him. So she called her inventions her babies then? And this tiny hyper compressor was one of them?

"C-cool! I worked with some power tools when I worked with a handyman, but it's really neat to think you can just carry around a small compressor like this for small jobs."

"Right? And not just for small jobs either, this literally can compress oxygen to where it almost becomes a liquid! It get's really hot when it's working, but it's still one of my favorite babies!" She took hold of his arm excitedly, her face uncomfortably close to his. It appeared that Izuku had made a new friend. For a moment he almost wished he had considered the support course a little more seriously. Then again, maybe it was better to keep a little more distance between himself and his excitable new friend.

"A-anyway, you were asking what we should make for our project," Izuku tried to gently pry the girl off his arm. She released her grip only to spread her arms wide.

"Yes! That's it! What baby should we make for our project! Hmm, a Gatling grapple hook launcher? Or maybe a palm computer? Hmmmmmm!"

"I-I think we should start with a problem that we want to address, that's how they explained the design process in class anyway," Izuku weakly contributed to her brainstorming.

"Indeed! What do heroes need? Hmm, more utility? But what can we improve for that? . . . A utility belt maybe? Ooooh, it could have a bunch of little compartments for all sorts of inventions!"

"H-how do you feel about keeping it a little more simple?"

"Simple!? Pshaw! Simple like what?"

"I don't know . . ." Izuku looked at the ground, "shoes maybe?"

She paused at that, as though thinking, then her eyes widened maniacally.

* * *

 **Aaand fade to black!**

 **Gawrsh, I get the feeling that the story's pace is a little slow, but I just keep wanting to add detail after detail after detail to it. If this keeps up I may have a full blown novel on my hands before Izuku even passes the first term of school!**

 **As always, tell me what you think. I know a lot of you are writers as well as readers, and it feels good when people let you know what they think, pointing out the good and the things that need worked on. #reviewWhore**


	5. Bear Market USJ

**Hi again fellas,**

 **It's been what? A month? Geeze . . . I've been keeping up with school work lately, but that has cut into my time to write this story. So, to remedy this I've been trying to set a pattern where I write a few paragraphs to a scene daily. We'll see how that goes.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own My Hero Academia; it would be pretty dope, but I really don't.**

 **Cheers.**

* * *

He was pretty sure his arm was broken.

He was running. His healthy physique was beginning to be coated in a sheen of sweat. Not that there was anything healthy about his dogged pace. A stone spike whooshed past his head, inspiring Izuku to push his body even harder towards safety.

"IT'S THE END OF THE LINE FOR YOU!" A rough tenor voice screeched after him.

"MIDORIYA-SAN!"

How Izuku had managed to end up in such dire straits, he dared to question.

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Kaminari-san whined, relaxing his lightning bolt hair against the glass of the school bus. Izuku, who was sitting next to the bored blond, smiled apologetically.

"I'm sure we'll get to the USJ any minute now, Kaminari-san. Hold on a little longer, ok?" Izuku took it upon himself to answer his neighbor's inquiry. Kaminari gave him a deadpan look, not having expected the green haired boy's needlessly serious response.

"Geeze, Deku, you're a cool guy, but sometimes you can be such a buzzkill," the electric teen sighed, pushing his face up against the cool glass harder.

"O-oh! I'm sorry, Kaminari-san, I didn't realize," Izuku stammered, realizing that the blond had probably been musing to himself about when class 1-A would arrive at their destination.

"It's kay," Kaminari lazily waved Izuku's awkwardness away. Normally Kaminari was a bundle of nerves and energy, but, for some reason or another, he had stayed up way too late; he was pretty sure he hadn't slept since the night before last. He was beginning to wonder if homework, gaming, and manga was a good way to spend his evenings.

Izuku was a little put out as well, he had heard that All Might had taken up a teaching position at U.A. and that he was supposed to be on the bus going to the same field trip with this class. Izuku had turned a little giddy at the thought; he especially wanted to thank the pro hero for saving him all those months back-not that the hero was likely to remember his face in the crowds of his rescuees and fans.

"Lighten up, Midoriya-kun, this'll be super fun! Just like those cutesy field trips back in middle school," Mina Ashido-san piped up from the set of seats next to him, her bubbly personality spilling out into her words. Izuku gulped, still not completely used to having girls talk to him; Hatsume-san had done wonders for his people skills in the past couple of weeks, but at times it was hard to really see her as a girl, especially when she started to get animated about a sudden burst of inspiration.

"I don't think this field trip will be quite as you say, Mina-chan, but it might be fun. Also, Midoriya-chan, what is in the case?" Asui . . . Tsuyu-san . . . -chan, Izuku mentally corrected himself, followed up on Ashido-san's comment. She had her usual straight faced demeanor, but still gave a curious glance at the strange box underneath Izuku's seat. Truth be told, it was a strange shaped suit case, almost like the travel bag for a trumpet, but a bit longer.

"O-oh, this? It's just something Hatsume-san wanted me to test out while we were here; I told her that I was going on a field trip with the hero course and she insisted I take it with me to try out," Izuku nervously patted the hard black chassis, looking all in the world like a hen sitting on a landmine. Hatsume-san had handed him the device with a wink and a hard pat on the back, which Izuku didn't know how to interpret.

"You can do that?" Tsuyu-san cutely cocked her head to the right a bit, a finger perched on her lips in thought.

"Apparently if a teacher signs off on it, you can. She had Power Loader-sensei give me a permission slip," Izuku scratched his cheek, smiling lamely.

"Is it the same thing with those shoes, Deku-kun?" Ururaka-san, shamelessly listening in from the row ahead, chimed in curiously while looking down at the green haired boy's mysterious footwear.

Izuku hadn't quite figured out how to tell the wonderful girl that his nickname was more of an insult from Kacchan (who was lividly glaring at him from quite a few rows down the aisle), but he obliged her by lifting one of his feet to display the semi-bulky footwear he was wearing. They looked more or less like normal shoes as far as the top was concerned, the only addition being a set of straps and an ankle brace that came up from the heel area, but the soles were an entirely different matter: thick metal plates adorned the sides of the shoe where rubber would normally be present, and the sole itself looked more like a soupy black sludge than a track.

"Yes, these are for a project in my product development class," Izuku smiled as he ran his hand across the fabric portion above the metal pieces; the fabric was a neat red, he was glad that Hatsume-san had obliged his desire for at least semi-stylish footwear in allowing for this. Sensing his classmates' questioning stares, he sheepishly continued.

"They're kind of like those all terrain shoes that Halo Co. puts out, but instead of just a single tread, they actually have a form change factor that let's you shift between tread that's optimal for different surfaces," Izuku explained as simply as he could, he and Hatsume-mostly Hatsume-san had gone through a lot of physics and material science formulae to design the functions of his footwear. Izuku clicked a tiny remote that had been wired to his shoe, and like magic, the sludgy material on the sole of his shoe took a more definite shape, spikes forming on the surface to make cleats. He clicked the remote repeatedly after that, cycling through different treads, like a deep hiking boot tread, or a more flexible running shoe, a pair of ice skates, or just a casual walking shoe tread. Sure the shoes were on the heavy side, but Izuku was still amazed, even a week later, that Hatsume-san had been able to run with his idea; she had told him to wear them every day so that her sensors could pick up as much data as possible. He had even taken them out on his morning runs to make sure the hardware could handle the strain.

"It also just has a sticky setting, which can help you keep your footing on slippery surfaces, and we're trying to figure out a pattern for the gel-soles to stick to glass," Izuku finished his presentation, looking up to see the sparkling eyes of the students present. Even Kaminari had awoken from his cat-nap to see what the excitement was about, and was now looking at Izuku in a mix of shock and awe. Who would have thought that the shy business major had something so cool up his sleeve?

"Whoa, that's really manly, Midoriya!" Kirishima Eijiro exclaimed, slapping Izuku on the back from the seat behind him and cackling good-naturedly, causing Izuku to jump. Izuku was no longer sure how many people were listening in on his conversation. Kirishima kept his manly pat's on the back going until his eyes opened up, and he asked aloud:

"Wait . . . why are you here again, Midoriya?"

Question marks began popping up all around the immediate group as the students began to wonder the same thing. Why was Midoriya Izuku, a business course student, here on a bus full of hero course students?

"Look, the USJ! Everyone, get ready to depart!" Iida Tenya called out to the class from a couple of rows behind Izuku. The bus had indeed arrived, the oppressive foliage along the road had parted to reveal the crest of a large domed structure. The casual conversations across the bus stopped as they class peered out of the bus windows at the large cement building. To the outside world (not that anyone from the outside world knew of this facility) it was a giant stone bubble, a fortress of concrete. The air, once crisp from the fresh outside air, cooled dryly as the buss entered the structure's parking garage. Izuku gulped nervously, but felt right in doing so: to be fair, the expressionate Ashido-san looked panicked.

"A cutesy field trip, huh?" Asui-san, straight faced even in the jittery atmosphere, gave a sidelong glance at Mina.

Once the abnormally tall school bus was safely parked, its students began to empty into the parking garage. Aizawa-sensei gave instruction to line up along the bus, but stopped Izuku with a gruff "Midoriya." as he passed the driver's seat.

"You may have permission to be here from Kuroko, but I want to make some ground rules clear, Midoriya: you're not to engage in the exercises taking place here. You're not to touch anything. You are here to observe and report to your teacher, nothing more. Am I clear?" The sleepless eyes of the legendary Eraserhead burned themselves even deeper into Izuku's memory.

"Yes sir!" Izuku saluted awkwardly, not sure what to do with his other hand, his back straight, his buttocks clenched. Aizawa sighed, muttering something about illogical women and useless paperwork. Izuku had dared to ask his homeroom teacher if she knew more about why Aizawa-sensei was so adverse to the business course; she had laughed shallowly, something Izuku had trouble registering at the time, and told him that _"Shota doesn't care for market politics, he thinks them too petty, but that's a hero for you; stubborn to a fault."_

Izuku wasn't sure how he was supposed to fulfill Hatsume-san's request to test out her "Doomsday Hammer-chan" with the restrictions on participating during the school exercise. Perhaps he could have one of the other student's use it in a pinch? He wasn't very keen on doing that; he'd seen enough explosions in Hatsume's work space, even when working on something as simple as shoes, to think twice of letting someone else use an untested piece of equipment. He picked up the questionable case with it's questionable contents anyway.

His musings and mutterings kept him busy even until the class stepped into the well lit area inside the giant dome they had seen from the outside. Izuku had his ideas of what was inside the giant structure, but what he saw put them to shame. It was like a giant terrarium, complete with a large lake and a yacht, spanning the entire width of the dome. A huge person, dressed in an astronaut suit met them at the entrance.

"Class! This is Thirteen, the Space Hero. Their quirk is Singularity, it creates black holes. They specialize in search and rescue missions, and will be your proctor her at the Unforseen Situation Joint." Aizawa sensei addressed the class with a serious expression. Izuku couldn't help wonder if Thirteen was a man or a woman, at the very least he knew that they were thin, judging from the spidery thin legs sticking out from the bulky space suit.

"Ahem, thank you Aizawa-san. Everyone, you are here today for an exercise that will benefit you in your paths to becoming pro heroes. As you can see around you, we have a variety of environments and natural disasters surrounding us in this area. You'll be practicing using your quirks in different ways to cope with different situations," Thirteen began in their distorted radio voice.

"Uhh, Thirteen-sensei? Is that supposed to be part of the training?" Kirishima questioned, pointing down to a black mist that seemed to be spreading out into the center of the giant building. Thirteen became silent as he took a couple of steps toward the gathering blackness.

"No . . . that's no test, that's trouble," Aizawa-sensei put on his special glasses and lowered his chin to glare at the mob of humanoids that began to pour out of the mist. The figures in the mist gradually became clear as toothy grins and maniac laughter gained presence. The rabble of villains looked foreboding, mutant bodies coupled with metal skin studs and poorly drawn tattoos, some licking their lips, others simply grinning with their eyes wide.

The stare down continued as the atmosphere became harsh. Izuku's heart was beating rapidly at this development. He was in danger. The whole class was in danger.

Eraserhead, no longer the teacher Aizawa Shota, lept down a flight of stairs to get a closer look at the mob.

"Where is All Might?" A baratone, phlegmy voice sounded out from the back of the congregated villains. That was all Izuku could make out of their conversation before his attention was pulled back into his surroundings.

"Someone, try to call the school, ask for immediate backup," Thirteen commanded with a slight edge to their voice. A dozen pairs of hands clammily grabbed at their phones and begun trying to form a coherent text.

"It's not working, the signal won't go through," Mina-san called out, her eyes narrow in a fierce expression, but her nervousness was betrayed by the biting of her lip.

"Dammit!" Kacchan roared, tiny blasts puffing from his fists.

" . . . Ugh, does anyone here have a teleportation, or speed quirk?" Thirteen called back.

"I-I have Enginium's quirk, I could run to the school and tell them what happened," Iida-san volunteered, trying to set an example as class president.

"Too late . . . " A deep voice replied from around the students as the source of the black vapor seeped from the ground between them and the exit. It was a man made of dark mist, almost like terrifying storm clouds, with a strange metal collar that seemed to stretch out his neck. His mist spread menacingly towards the students.

"Get behind me, class!" Thirteen bellowed in their radio voice, charging for the darkness. Kacchan and Kirishima roared in what they considered to be many rage and charged for the shadow man as well.

"Divide . . . and conquer," the dark humanoid grimly stated as the blackness exploded outwards, scattering the students of class 1-A all throughout the dome.

* * *

Izuku felt tossed about in the darkness, his stomach sloshing uncomfortably, when suddenly the shadowy mist receded and he found his fit frame rolling across stony ground. He looked around him frantically, finding his case a few feet away, and took stock of his surroundings. He was about midway up a mountain; in his disorientation, Izuku was reminded of a field trip to a mountain shrine once as a child. Looking up, he found the domed ceiling of the USJ above him. He must have been teleported to one of the disaster simulations!

Clutching his case to his body, his knees shaking like young trees in a hurricane, Izuku whimpered pitifully. The panic set in that he was once again in a real life situation where he was statistically more likely to die than a typical human being. It felt like the incident with Katsuki and the sludge monster, only worse; here he was alone-

 _"I'm warning you! Stay back!"_ A familiar voice cried out, the sound echoing slightly along with the pings and clangs of a struggle. Izuku was pretty sure it came from further up the mountain. If Izuku was right, it sounded like Yaoyorozu-san, the class VP.

Unconsciously, Izuku's knees straightened out and his crippling fear lost it's edge. He had to help! But how? His gaze fell upon his strangely shaped case . . .

He found himself reveling in the possibilities. Izuku's guilty conscience would never concede to this: but the dreamer inside of him had jumped for joy when Hatsume-san had handed him her support item to test, it was hungry-starved even-for a glimmer of the hope that Izuku had been denied. All he had ever wanted was for someone to tell him "You can be a hero." When Toshinori-san had offered to help him get in shape for the U.A. exams it was the closest thing he had gotten to that satisfaction, but it wasn't enough for Izuku. He was greedy for hope; covetous for it.

"C-can I really . . . ? S-should I . . . " Izuku's sweaty hands shivered as he fumbled with the latches on the case. Izuku knew all too well the legal ramifications of using a hero support item on another human being without a permit; there were several law suits he had been required to study in school. None of those law suits ended well for the defendant. However, Izuku was pretty sure this was a unique circumstance . . . at least that's what he kept telling himself.

The case popped open with a hiss, exposing the most futuristic looking sledge hammer Izuku had ever seen. The hammer head was more of a bulky mallet design with a round, plate-like cap on the business tip of the handle. A set of dials and a brake-styled grip sat on the operating end of the handle. Izuku grit his teeth and clenched his hands around the handle. The "Doomsday Hammer," as Hatsume-san had so affectionately christened it, surprisingly felt about as heavy as a normal sledge hammer in Izuku's hands despite it's metal handle; he didn't pay too much attention to the weight, but was subconsciously grateful that he had kept his work out routine in the mornings even after failing the U.A. entrance exam.

Izuku nodded grimly to himself as he started a brisk hike towards the sounds of violence above him. He knew what he was doing, he was terrified inside, but he kept climbing.

The second Izuku saw people over the rocks, he had to stop himself from calling out to them. They were a large gang of the villain alliance, encircling his class 1-A classmates Yaoyorozu-san and Kyoka-san, causing them to back towards the base of a cliff.

"Sword!" Kyoka-san called to the class VP, discarding a katana-broken at the hilt. The creation quirk user pulled another blade from her shirt and tossed it to earphone-jack girl. Both of the girls seemed to be holding their own against whichever villain pressed forward, but, even between the sharp blades and Kyoka's occasional sonic blast from her ear-jacks, the battle was still so one sided. They would knock a bad guy back, another would take their place. It was evident on Yaoyorozu's face that she understood that she was fighting a losing battle; she scanned the terrain around them, trying to formulate a plan of escape, when her eyes fell on the face of Midoriya Izuku as he poked his head out from behind some rocks. She looked confused, but quickly became too busy to process the new information properly.

Izuku was startled when he made eye contact with the class 1-A girl, not expecting her to see him. He had to figure out a way to get his classmates away from the rabble of quirk users, and fast!

"L-let's see, Hatsume-san said to tap the tip of the hammer against the material you want to react with," Izuku held the hammer, head down and tapped the plate on the tip to the stone beneath his feet. A whirring sound confirmed that something had taken place inside the machinery.

" . . . and then to set the amplitude with the dial-oh, right, ' _don't turn the dial to the right unless you really want to see something crazy happen'._ I'll just leave this to the left then . . . " Izuku drawled to himself, getting into a ready position.

"And then . . . " He sprinted towards the edge of the group of villains, his eyes tearing with fear, his heart demanding courage. He leaped, lunging to slam the hammer down on the stone ground at the villains' feet.

"SMASH!" He yelled in his best hero voice. Several villains turned, surprised at the sudden exclamation.

There was a click as the mallet end of the hammer connected to the ground.

Then there was a concussive *BOOOM* as a giant shock wave exploded from the ground, centered at the stone beneath the hammer's head. The blast threw almost everyone in the immediate vicinity off their feet, but Izuku stood tall; the black gel from his shoes sticking him firmly to the stone beneath his feet.

It was difficult to hear. There was a ringing in Izuku's ears as he observed the chaos around him. Dozens of villains had been blown off their feet; others with heavier frames simply tripping, or barely holding their footing. He looked to his 1-A classmates and saw that they had miraculously stayed standing, being on the edge of the shock wave's radius.

His arms tingled, his hands tingled. He was having trouble feeling the weight of the hammer in his hands. He was having trouble keeping his grip in general. His hearing started to refocus as he was brought back to reality. He still needed to save his friends. He barely had grounds to consider himself a friend to the class, but he had eaten lunch with these people and that was enough for Izuku. He turned off the sticky setting for his shoes and started sprinting towards the two class 1-A girls.

"WE NEED TO ESCAPE, NOW!" He exclaimed, the volume of his hearing not quite returned. Kyoka-san and Yaoyorozu got the message though, nodding and running for a split in one of the mountain peaks. Yaoyorozu-san must have had a plan to begin with.

"GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT-STAINS!" One of the villainous men, having righted himself, screamed as he took off after them; other quick footed villains were on his heels. But the three U.A. students had a head start.

"We need to find the rest of the class and make sure that they're safe!" Yaoyorozu-san explained their next objective as Kyoka-san and Izuku followed behind her. Izuku had a little trouble hearing her, but could make out the gist of what she was saying. His hands had stopped tingling and now were exhibiting more of a painful itch.

"I'll bet they're spread out in the other disaster zones." Kyoka-san mused aloud, though Izuku couldn't hear.

The narrowness of the stony trench was a tactical decision, Izuku realized; Yaoyorozu-san must have noticed that the crag between the mountains was wide enough to only comfortably fit one person. The villains behind them would have to chase in single file, making it easier for the students to escape.

At least that was the idea, but she found herself wishing she had picked a different plan as the crack between the mountains opened up into a cliff-side path that narrowed into a sheer rocky slope. There was little chance of outrunning a group of outlaws down the steep, stony hill.

"What do we do!?" Izuku cried out, looking despairingly from his class mates to the villains catching up down the crag.

"Look! Those buildings over there look like they're part of the weather disaster zone!" Kyoka-san pointed with a finger, and an ear-jack, at what looked like a ruined city with dark clouds hanging over it. It looked like there was a fence at the base of the mountain below it, but the city and it's buildings were just across that fence. If they could make it there, they might be able to find their classmates and escape!

Yaoyorozu-san focus her stare downward and she started forming a plan to get down the mountain, she could possibly make a mattress or a sled to quickly get down the hill without getting the three of them dying-

"NOWHERE TO RUN, KIDDIES!" Momo jumped when the maniacal voice of their lead pursuer erupted from the chasm behind them; his wiry frame and spiked hair glistening with an unnatural hardness. He took a menacing step out of the cave mouth, making staccato movements as he leered at the two frightened 1-A girls. Other pursuers were just a few dozen yards behind him.

"Time's up," the villain gleefully licked at his sharpened fingers, rearing back to take another awful step, "I've got you right where I want yo-"

*WHAM!* From his hiding place beside the cave wall, Izuku swung his whole body like a door hinge, Hatsume's hammer in tow, and smashed the sharpened man in the face with his hammer. Izuku didn't have the courage to find out what would have happened if he had pulled the trigger on the hammer during that strike, so he had powered off the resonator. The man's form, solid and rigid like steel, cartwheeled back with the impact, bowling into the next set of chasing villains.

His hand's aching in strange ways, Izuku pulled the grip trigger on the hammer and slammed its head on the canyon wall. *BOOM* The resonating head of Hatsume's aptly named hammer crashed into the stony walls with great force, causing a spider web of cracks to travel up the fissure. The walls didn't come crashing down to seal the pass like Izuku would have hoped, but a mess of rocks began to fall on the poor villains inside. Again deafened by the sound of his hammer, Izuku stepped as far away from the mountain peak as he dared to avoid falling rocks. His arms and hands were numb again.

"THAT WON'T HOLD THEM BACK FOR LONG," Izuku called to the girls in front of him, his ears ringing louder than ever. Momo-san seemed to have figured out a plan, because she turned to Kyoka-san and said something that Izuku couldn't hear. Jiro-san got behind Momo-san and started helping the creation quirk user take her shirt off . . .

Wait . . .

"Don't look, Idiot!" Jiro-san, realizing that Izuku was facing them, slapped the quirkless boy's face; he could barely hear that part. Regardless he panicked, squealed like a girl, and covered his eyes. Thankfully no villain had recovered from the rock slide in time to take advantage of the group's openings, for when a tap alerted Izuku that he could uncover his eyes he saw his classmates safe, sound, and dressed.

Momo-san had created a paraglider, its flashy orange color looking rather refreshing.

"YOU CAN PARAGLIDE?" Izuku asked aloud, she nodded and stood in a ready posture, holding the paraglider above her. She gestured for the two wingless students to hold onto her, saying something Izuku couldn't hear. He couldn't really hear much at the moment, he worried deeply that he may have broken his ear drums. Jiro-san seemed pretty nervous too. The two student's awkwardly held their hands about Yaoyorozu's waist, just starting to get their grip, when Momo-san looked behind them, visibly gasped, and then jumped off the cliff with Izuku and Jiro in tow.

There was a jittery feeling as they fell, then a yank upwards as Yaoyorozu-san caught an updraft. Regardless, they were barely gliding by Izuku's observation. The glider clearly wasn't meant to hold three people. Did Izuku mention the was holding on as tight as he could to Momo-san's waist? It was quite a feat, considering Izuku could barely feel a tingle in his arms let alone feel if his hands were gripping properly.

What felt like minutes were merely a second or two in the air. Beneath the entire airborne entourage the trees on the outskirts of the stormy city reached up for them.

Suddenly, Izuku felt a grip on his ankle. Reflexively looking down Izuku saw the shiny villain from before, his sharp fingers digging into Izuku's shoes and pants. The man grinned up at him with sharkish teeth, yelling something that Izuku couldn't hear, and jerked his weight down on the poor boy's leg.

Izuku was confused for a moment, but the rising in his stomach confirmed that his grip had slipped . . .

 _"-san...!"_ The voices above him echoed faintly in his ears.

* * *

 **Now, I know what you're thinking. "You God. Damn. Monster. Cliffie again? Seriously!?" But I can explain! Actually, I really can't. My lame excuse is that the word count was getting a bit high and I wanted to get SOMETHING to you guys as soon as I could to make up for taking so long.**

 **I did my best to keep Izuku as relatively useless and self destructive as before, because I do love a good weakling story, but Damnit I really want some sci-fi gadgets to come into play. This is especially because Izuku needs something to build his Business Empire on. Mwahahah!**

 **I struggled choosing which set of characters to stick Izuku with in the USJ battle; the canon was amazing, I just don't want to make a bland transcription of the original story. Eventually I decided on Momo and Jiro, because reasons. Reasons that will be revealed later. Probably.**

 **As always, let me know what you think. Your friendly neighborhood review-whore is in town.**


	6. Bear Market USJ Part II

**Hi again fellas! So finals are almost done, which is partially why this chapter isn't quite as long as I was hoping for.**

 **Just so you know: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FROM CHAPTER 121+ OF THE MANGA.**

 **So if you haven't read that far, please take what is mentioned with a grain of salt.**

 **Anyhow, I don't own MHA and I'm not sure I would want to be entrusted with finishing a manga series so perfect.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

"AAAAaaaahHHH!" Izuuku screamed as he fell, though there was no sinking feeling in his gut; in fact, the entire experience felt oddly mute. Had Izuku been given the time, he would have realized that he was screaming purely for the sake of screaming. He could barely hear loud noises around him, almost like his ears had been plugged, and his body's perception of down was all sorts of wrecked. Not to mention his arms, now an irate red, were swollen and the pin pricks that he had felt earlier were rising into sharp lances of pain. Izuku caught himself rambling in his mind, only to find that time itself seemed slower; he had read about his phenomenon: his body must have dumped a ton of adrenaline into his bloodstream.

The villain below him had let go of Izuku's ankle, smiling viciously as his body sharpened and hardened like a blade. Izuku was scared to look down at his immanent future as a splat on the ground below. He was too distracted with his fall to consider his life flashing before his eyes.

*CRASH* He was blinded temporarily as leaves scraped past his face, his body catching on numerous twigs and branches before finally coming to a stop. The pain was lessened by Izuku's chemically addled mind, but he still lost his breakfast into the canopy below. He looked pitiful, he felt sick, his body slumped over a large bough like a slinky. Various cuts and scrapes littered his arms, and his uniform was trashed. His businessman self didn't want to consider the medical bills involved with such injuries. But . . .

"Hah . . . hah . . . I'm alive!" Izuku looked at himself incredulously, by his estimate, he should have been a crumpled lump of flesh on the sidewalk of the urban disaster zone; but by sheer luck, he had landed in one of the large trees along the fence line. He craned his neck from his slump to see the large group of villains slowly scaling the rocky drop that he and the Class 1-A girls had just glided from. Just as he was about to sigh in relief, however, a loud shearing noise alerted him.

*Shhhcliiing!* The Sharp Edge villain cackled as he swung his arm across the base of Izuku's improvised safety net. In an almost movie-esq fashion, the trunk of the tree slid off of it's new stump. The tree tipped precariously towards the fence, and the branches shook as Izuku cried out of dear life.

*CRASH* Cracks and snaps exploded around Izuku, his hearing marginally returning, as the tree smashed itself on the fence line and concrete of the Urban Disaster Zone.

Izuku had some new scrapes and soon to be bruises, but, as luck would have it, he was relatively unscathed compared to what could have happened. Izuku had no time to revel in his safety, however: the cringe-worthy laugh of the sharp villain was getting closer. He scrambled out from under some loose branches, nearly tripped over the Doomsday Hammer that had somehow landed a few feet away, and bolted for the rainy city up ahead. His arm screamed in protest as he held onto the hammer; he almost lost his grip a couple of times. Was his wrist supposed to bend that way? Or his forearm for that matter? He dared not consider it.

The wind howled, Izuku was beginning to be able to hear almost semi decently, and the rain blasted across his face as he ran. Up ahead, he saw the discarded Paraglider blocking the entrance of a gutter, and picked up speed to his legs. He could faintly hear the clanking footfalls of the villain behind him; he hoped that his classmates could help him.

He was pretty sure his arm was broken.

He was running. His healthy physique was beginning to be coated in a sheen of sweat. Not that there was anything healthy about his dogged pace, or his ripped up body. A stone spike whooshed past his head, inspiring Izuku to push his body even harder towards safety.

"IT'S THE END OF THE LINE FOR YOU!" A rough tenor voice screeched after him. The voice was different from the Sharp Edged Villain, a light rumbling of scraping rocks resounded behind Izuku.

"MIDORIYA-SAN!" Yaororozu screamed from the doorway of a nearby garage.

Izuku had just enough time to register where the voice of his classmate was coming from, before the ground beneath him rolled up like a scroll and toppled him to the ground.

"AGHHH! AAh-AHHHHHH-GNNNNN!" Now he was sure his arms were broken; they bent, almost like rubber, and pain incapacitated the poor quirkless boy. He rolled on the ground screaming, trying to clutch as his arms, but even his fingers flapped oddly as he tried to do so. Whatever numbness the vibration from the Doomsday Hammer had induced was now completely gone. Izuku's mind checked out.

* * *

Izuku opened his eyes-OH GOD HIS ARMS HURT. They stung and throbbed at the mere thought of moving. Biting his lip and holding back tears, Izuku looked around. He was in a dark room with a concrete floor, and to his surprise Jiro-san and Momo-san met his gaze. He looked down, noticing that his arms were crudely splinted and bandaged.

"Ack! How did we get . . . Guh!" Izuku tried to sit up, and the pain in his arms intensified. Yaoyorozu-san was immediately by his side, and held a small cup to his lips. The drink tingled as it went down, but Izuku noticed his pain numb a bit.

"Stay still, I can't give you much more pain medicine, or I'm afraid you'll overdose," Yaororozu-san grimaced, her eyebrows knit together in veiled panic.

"What happened to you, man?" Kyoka-san stared daggers at his mangled arms. She was sure he had broken something from that fall, but this was on an entire level above. Falling off a paraglider would break a few bones, not turn them into silly putty. Izuku grimaced. He had a theory as to what had happened to his arms: the Doomsday Hammer had been tuned to resonate at the frequency of rock in order to create shock waves across the mountain terrain. Thankfully it accomplished it's task without a hitch, but things that had similar resonance frequencies must have also been affected, if slightly less. Things like bone. His sticky shoe setting had saved his legs by dampening the vibrations, but his arms were directly exposed. Twice. Oh dear. He could be wrong! Maybe one of the villains had a bone breaking quirk! Hatsume-san's invention couldn't possibly have . . .

"H-how did we get away?" Izuku whispered hoarsely, changing the subject. He didn't want to think about it.

"Simple, Momo flash banged them, I messed em up with my Ear Jacks, then we ran," Jiro-san attempted to keep a level expression, but her voice was grim.

"Has the school brought help yet?" Izuku began weighing the possibilities. If all the other students were in similar straits as Izuku and the two Class 1-A girls, the class wasn't likely to last much longer if it hadn't been overtaken by villains already. Someone must have gotten through to the school by now. Help HAD to be coming! But if it didn't . . . Izuku mentally slapped himself. He had to believe in the heroes of the school! He had to . . .

"We have to get to the rest of the class," Izuku tried to sit up. Yaoyorozu pushed him back down, a cross expression on her model-like face.

"First rule of first aid: If someone has a broken limb, do NOT move them," She asserted.

"But, the villains," Izuku tried to reason with her. If they stayed here, eventually the villains would find them. Then they would probably die.

"They're being taken care of by Fumikage outside." Kyoka-san stated matter-of-fact-ly. Izuku talked to Fumikage-san a few times, his love of quirks made him unafraid of the young man's sharp beak and glaring countenance. Fumikage gave off the cool aura of a shounen manga rival protagonist, but Izuku had his doubts as to how he could handle experienced villains in a fight.

"He's out there by himself!?" Izuku asked, then coughed a few times. Sensing the worry in his tone, Jiro-san put up her hands in a calming motion.

"I know you haven't been able to see us go at it in P.E., but trust me, Fumikage has got it covered. This place is perfect for his quirk," the Earjack heroine placated Izuku's fears. The darkness from the storm clouds in this area _would_ have a pretty strong effect on Fumikage's dark shadow.

"But still . . . we've got to do something," Izuku sighed, unconsciously trying to sit up. The painkillers in his system made his broken arms bearable, he felt like he could move if he needed to.

"Midoriya-kun, you _have_ done something! Jiro-san and I could have been dead or worse if you hadn't shown up when you did! We need to get you medical attention, but for now we need to stay safe from the villains outside," Momo-san pushed him down again. "In the meantime, try to get some rest."

Part of Izuku wanted to believe that the three of them would be safe in their hiding place, but part of his mind was still running scenarios of various villains finding and capturing the students. Izuku hated the idea of being used as a hostage against heroes. Somebody _must_ have alerted the school by now, they just needed to hold out until then. Oddly enough, tiny thoughts about his classes back in 1-L snuck into his mind's eye as well; he had a homework assignment due on Monday for economy trends, a lab with Hatsume-san the same day, he'd been partnered with some of his business course classmates for a group assignment on Wednesday . . .

Izuku's mind drawled on, the painkillers in his system slowly lulling him into sleep.

* * *

Once Midoriya-san was presumably asleep, Momo slumped against the wall. She had studied countless case reports and reproductions of disasters and acts of terrorism, but nothing could have prepared her for today. She had come from a well off family, and, when her talents began to shine, had been groomed as a prodigy. When she expressed a desire to become a hero, her parents spared no expense in her training with the best martial artist available. She had done her best to prepare for the day she'd enter U.A. in every she knew how. She was competent. Yet she felt so inadequate, and beneath her strong front she was a little scared. What if Midoriya-san was right? What if Fumikage-san was beaten by the villains outside? Then what? Of one thing she was certain, Midoriya-san was in no condition to be moved.

The boy was somewhat of an enigma to her. When he had first introduced himself to the class, he gave the vibe of a nervous homebody. Then, after she had been elected to class vice-president, he had asked for her opinion on the members of the class; questions like "How successful do you think Koda-san could be as a hero?", or "How do you think Aoyama would react to this situation?". He had scribbled notes on her replies so dutifully, completely focused. At lunch, when Kirishima had dragged Midoriya over to the group table, the young man was so quiet, his eyes darting from person to person; he didn't look scared, but more like he was in awe of each of them. He could be so shy at one moment, and completely level-headed at another. She was sure that such a personality was unhealthy.

And then he'd jumped in to save them. The battle in the mountain zone was doomed to lose, she had known that from the moment the mob of villains poured out of the black portals. If she and Jiro-san had been accompanied by Todoroki-san, Kaminari-san, or even Bakugo-san to fight the masses, then they might have had a fighting chance, but the warp gate villain had separated them from any hope of survival. And then, surprisingly, it was Midoriya-san with a strange support item that came to their rescue. The shy, quirkless boy had surprised her and Jiro-san. Momo was certain, that no one in the entire class 1-A, except for possibly Iida-san (who seemed to place Midoriya on some sort of pedestal), would have expected Midoriya-san to rescue them.

And now their unconventional savior was laying on the concrete floor with his arms broken in the strangest of ways. Momo owed it to her provisional classmate to take care of him until help would arrive.

Footsteps broke Momo from her puzzling, the door to the concrete warehouse creaked open slowly. Kyoko jumped to turn off the lantern that Momo had created earlier with her quirk.

"Hah, hah," Ojiro stepped into the building, his hair and clothes soaked through. He panted, catching his breath; the brawl outside had drained him and his clothes were littered in cuts and tears. Tokoyami had urged him, begged him even, to go and find shelter before his quirk, Dark Shadow, consumed him entirely. So, feeling a loss of personal honor, he fled; he had seen Momo and Jirou dragging the business course boy into one of these buildings, perhaps he could keep them safe. This field trip had turned into a full scale nightmare.

"Psst! Ojiro-kun!" A harsh signal slithered from the darkness. Ojiro turned in the lowlight to see three prone figures, one looking pretty banged up, huddled on the floor in the corner.

"It's me," He assured. There was a telltale click, and concrete room was illuminated by an electric lantern, revealing two grim faced girls and an out-cold business course student.

"Is everything alright out there?" Momo asked, worried.

"Tokoyami is still fighting, but his quirk is starting to rampage out of control," Ojiro stated, hugging himself slightly; the temperature inside this fake concrete building must have dropped 10 degrees from outside.

Momo knit her eyebrows together, while Jirou mused aloud: "With all this mayhem, you'd think the school would be here by now."

"But, Kyoka-san, remember when Thirteen said that the villains must have jammed communications? Maybe the school doesn't even know about this." Ojiro surmised.

"Well, yeah, but I've got like a bar right now, so whoever jammed our phones must have stopped."

Wait . . .

There was a slight pause before Ojiro and Momo frantically whipped out their phones. Sure enough there was a tiny signal. Incredulously, Momo dialed the school's office; why she had the number saved was a mystery, but she was glad she had it.

"U.A. High, this is Alexa speaking, how may I help you?" A feminine voice chimed into the receiver.

"There's been a villain attack at the USJ! Please send help!" Momo all but screamed into the phone in an embarrassingly unladylike fashion. An irritated scoff scraped across the line.

"Wait . . . is this Shelby again? Because if you're prank calling me again, I swear . . . this is an office telephone young lady and if you disrespect the staff of this school I will-"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! VILLAINS ARE ATTACKING THE UNFORSEEN SITUATION JOINT! PLEASE GET SOMEO-"

A tap at her shoulder shook her from her rant.

"Don't worry, we're here to help!"

A masculine face smiled from the wall in front of Momo. She shrieked into the receiver, much to the office lady's displeasure, before dropping her phone. The high cheeked face extended an equally masculine hand from it's wall, shaking her hand; she noted the scars littering it's forearm. The entire room was quiet, its residents dumbfounded. The face sighed comically before pushing out of the concrete, brilliant blond hair and a stout body sprouting from the stone. He was garbed in a muscle-fit white shirt with golden trim, blue pants, and a lustrous red cape.

"W-who are you!" Kyoka-san, now fully freaked out, took a stand, her earjacks poised like venomous stingers. She got a handshake as well.

"Togata Mirio from class 3-A! Nice to meet you! Fear not damsels, and gentleman, for I am here!"

* * *

 **. . . . . Get it? Hah, maybe. Maybe not.**

 **I'll definitely have more time to give you all a longer chapter this next update. Please let me know how you like things so far; I'm trying to pick up the pace of the story, but at the same time I want to make it feel like a well developed plot so that I can GO BEYOND: PLUS ULTRAAA!**

 **Copy that. Review Whore out.**


	7. Bear Market USJ Part III

**So . . . I guess this is the part where I apologize profusely to all the people who have read to this point and then silently cursed me for dropping off of the face of the earth.**

 **I'm sorry. It's been a year and I've finally gathered the determination and time to start this up again. It's been an interesting year with a lot of changes in my life that have required more attention than I knew how to manage. To give you the short of it: I've gone from being a university student that worked as a sample guy at Costco, to still being a university student while starting my own business. It's kind of ironic, all things considered.** **Thankfully the canon of My Hero Academia is still developing and there isn't much regarding the business course at UA High that could throw a wrench in my current description of it.**

 **That being said: Thank You. Thank you for taking time to read this next installment. Thank you for waiting for me.**

 **All heart filling emotions aside, I do legally have to give the disclaimer that I don't own My Hero** **Academia or any of it's associated trademarks or characters. There, I did it. On with the show.**

* * *

"-I am here!" Mirio beamed with his comically masculine features. Truth be told, he looked every bit the hero that was here to save the day; every feature perfectly placed to inspire hope. It was this same upbeat countenance that clashed so heavily with the dreariness of their situation. Ojiro nodded, relaxing only slightly as he tried to keep a level head; internally he was jumping for joy. Momo deflated as she heaved a huge sigh of relief and, after awkwardly realizing that the office lady was still on the line, sheepishly ended her call. Kyoka just stood there, almost glaring at the newly arrived savior, waiting to see if she was hallucinating.

"Are the heroes here as well?" Ojiro asked simply to confirm his suspicions that true rescue had arrived.

"All Might and I were a bit faster than the group, but the rest of the heroes are on their way!" Mirio gave a thumbs up. He took a moment to survey the sparse surroundings of the building and saw Izuku's broken form laid safely in a corner. He took steps towards the green haired youth.

"He's still alive," Momo quickly asserted as she followed Mirio's gaze.

"He looks like he's taken a real beating," Mirio paused, concern flashing across his features as he took note of the cuts and bruises as well as the irate purple swelling of Izuku's arms. He felt saddened inside that he couldn't save the poor boy, if _only_ he could have mastered One for All and gotten there faster. He knelt down next to the unconscious teen and said "Hey, it's going to be OK now. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to get here sooner."

"He needs a doctor. He hurt himself saving us, and if what I've read is true that purple swelling means he's starting to lose circulation to his arms." Momo added, hoping that Mirio could do something to help.

"Hmm . . . Recovery Girl is on her way, we need her to see him ASAP. Do we have any way to move him closer to the entrance?" Mirio asked, looking each person in the eye. Momo fidgeted slightly before submitting her solution.

"There's not much to use around here, but there are some trees nearby; if we can get some straight sticks, I think I have enough energy left to make a stretcher." She volunteered.

"Right ho then. Off I go to get some tree limbs!" Mirio declared as he phased through the floor. Momo, stunned at his sudden exit, blinked a few times before getting to work on extruding the cloth liner to make a stretcher.

"We still need to get Tokoyami-kun." Kyoka submitted straightly.

"His quirk is fully out of control by now. Maybe it's better if we wait for heroes to come and subdue him." Ojiro responed thoughtfully, using tactical reasoning. Kyoka frowned at that response. It made perfect sense, but it also grated on her conscious to just leave the boy out there especially after he had done so much to keep them safe.

"Listen, we're going to be the heroes doing this in a few years; if we aren't going to try doing it now, what does that say about us doing it then?" Kyoka said bluntly, inside she was hoping that she sounded brave enough to convince them. She just felt so _helpless,_ not having been able to save much of anything during this whole disaster; she felt guilty that Momo, Izuku, and now Tokoyami had put their lives on the line while the best she could do was blast a couple of villains out of the way.

Ojiro lifted his hands in a placating motion, saying "Alright then, I'm all for saving Tokoyami as well. What did you have in mind?"

Jiro stopped and bit her pointer finger's knuckle in thought. Perhaps there was some way they could lure the Dark Shadow out of the urban disaster zone . . . but it would be impossible to outrun him with Izuku in a stretcher. Maybe they could just beat him into submission and carry him along too; his physique didn't seem too heavy, but considering the fact that Tokoyami had just fought professional villains and won she wasn't liking the odds of beating him to a pulp before receiving the same treatment. Maybe all those villains he fought tired him out? But does darkness ever really get tired? She removed her knuckle from her teeth and began fidgeting her hands up and down in motions not unlike beating a drum set. She was beginning to realize that Tokoyami wasn't a good match up for her quirk. She grit her teeth. There _had_ to be a way to do this.

"I think that I could probably make a couple more flash bangs," Momo volunteered wearily, now holding the patchwork for an improvised stretcher. Jiro hadn't even noticed her joining the brainstorming session, and cursed internally at the thought of putting more strain on the poor girl. But . . . a flash bang would definitely work wonders on calming Dark Shadow down. After some consideration, Jiro nodded and turned to Ojiro.

"I'll lure him out, then you stun him. Deal?" Jiro proposed. Ojiro nodded as Momo passed him a pair of flash grenades; she looked noticeably thinner and unnaturally pale, as though a stiff breeze would push her over. She had overused her quirk and now her body demanded payment.

Ojiro and Jiro stepped out into the overcast replica of a city. The rain had stopped for the moment, but the wind was still gusty and strong. Their young eyes peered around the alleyways and sidewalks, looking for their out of control ally. Their search was rewarded when they discovered a trail of incapacitated villains, all of them breathing though some more battered than others. Following the trail, they came to a stop in a fenced off alleyway. Curled up in the corner, enshrouded by a birdlike coat of blackness twice the size of a grown man, was Tokoyami. Jiro signaled for Ojiro to hide before entering the dead end. The dark boy's hawk like features scrunched into worried frown as the darkness began to move him like a shadowy hulk towards its next victims.

"Jiro, you need to get out of here! It's not safe for me to be around you!" The umbral mass crouched like a sprinter, a maniacal grin warping it's face above Tokoyami's own. Jiro, seeing what was about to happen turned and ran for the mouth of the alley. Dark shadow launched itself quickly after her, cackling darkly as Tokoyami struggled against it.

"Now would be a good time to jump in and finish it!" Jiro screamed as she rounded the corner.

Dark Shadow dragged a great claw against the building wall to help it hinge and turn after her. It reached for the acoustic girl, grabbing her by the scruff of her Rock and Roll T-shirt and lifting her off the ground as though she was a tiny kitten. She flinched and covered her eyes in what the darkness could only assume was fear. She was really just covering her eyes before the blinding flash of light exploded out from beneath the monster's feet. Ojiro stood at attention, one last stun grenade in hand, poised to be thrown.

Dark Shadow deflated at the eruption of light, his grip on Tokoyami loosening as its great hulking figure leaned out. It screeched in frustration and pain, turning to face Ojiro just in time to catch the next flash to its face. With a final wail Dark Shadow receded into Tokoyami's own, pacified. Tokoyami was lying in in its wake, panting and grunting as he forced himself to his feet. He gave the two rescuers an even stare.

"You should have waited for the staff to come and subdue me. That was far too dangerous," He stated, level headed as always. Beneath his tempered visage his heart swelled with gratitude that his classmates came to save him. He hated losing control of Dark Shadow; it had been terrifying as a child, but even now as a young adult the though of losing himself and hurting those close to him chilled him to the bone.

"Thank Jiro-san, she made a convincing argument to come get you," Ojiro politely replied. He had prided himself on thinking reasonably, but today he had seen the merit of committing one's passion to saving another. He was in silent awe that Jiro had taken the initiative to do what was needed.

After a small trek back to their hiding place, the group was reunited once more. Momo had lost a bit of her pale complexion and Izuku had been moved to the now completed stretcher. Mirio volunteered to carry one end of Izuku's weight, and Ojiro quickly took the other.

For a moment, the end of the awful nightmare was in sight.

* * *

That is, until they arrived at the main hub of the USJ.

They were greeted with a battlefield. Numerous bodied lay strewn about, almost entirely mounds of lesser villains that had been subdued in one way or another except for the broken form of Eraser Head, laying face down in a small splatter of his own blood. At the center of the destruction was All Might fighting with a grotesque dark skinned monster with an avian beak, its brain seemingly exposed. All might himself was lightly battered, but still standing, the creature Nomu, however, seemed unhurt.

"Texas SMASH!" All Might bellowed as he dodged under a wide swipe from Nomu and counterattacked.

On either side of the fighting were two groups. On one side was the creepy ring leader, with at least a dozen dismembered hands gripping his body, along with the cloud of darkness that had used his quirk to warp the students to their respective ambushes. Mineta and Denki were on the opposing side, dragging a faint Tsuyu who was clutching her arm. Tsuyu's eyes were clenched closed in pain; her arm had a massive gray wound on it that appeared to be cracked and crumbling like loose concrete. Denki's face was glossed over as he deftly helped drag her towards the doorway: a clear indicator that he had overcharged himself and temporarily fried his brain cells.

Izuku's caravan ducked behind a mound of unconscious vagabonds. The battle ahead stood between them and safety. They HAD to get Izuku to safety somehow. Mirio was about to open his mouth to propose a solution when a grunt of surprise from All Might got their attention. Peering over the pile of bodies, they understood the crisis. All Might had gone for a suplex against the monster Nomu only to have the ground beneath his head open up in a cloud of dark mist. Nomu had countered quickly, and the All American hero was now being held precariously in place halfway through the portal; the circular gate now began to constrict, becoming equivocal to a falling guillotine.

"To lay such a trap! What Villainy!" All Might cursed as the portal became increasingly tighter in clearance. If he didn't think fast he was going to lose a lot of weight!

"I don't usually like the thought of people's bits being lost inside of me, but for you I think it will be an honor." Kurogiri said comfortingly. All Might grit his teeth as his body strained against Nomu's. The portal's edge inched closer and closer to his waist, it was mere millimeters away from breaking skin when a blast of cool air washed across the plaza. Nomu now stood still, unable to move against the ice encasing his body. All Might broke out of Nomu's grip and began squirming his way through the portal. Kurogiri began to close his portal, but just as he was about to bisect the Symbol of Peace himself the blast of an explosion shattered his concentration. When the dark misty villain moved to stand he was immediately kicked back down by the ashen haired Bakugo; the explosive teen's hands crackled and popped threateningly as he held Kurogiri down.

"Don't try any funny business, Darth Fucker," Katsuki threatened, his eyes spelling death to Kurogiri's own. The explosive blonde had seen just about enough of today. First the villains show up to wreck HIS training, now they tried to kill HIS idol? Not today, bitches!

Tomura took a step back. His escape route had just been routed, and now he was desperate.

"Nomu, get back our gate!" Tomura screamed and Nomu was surprisingly quick to get the message. He launched his hulking form at Katsuki, barreling the boy off of the dark gate user. The monstrosity raised his fists to crush the stunned teen, and hurled them down, only for them to meet resistance at the crossed fists of All Might once more. Nomu screeched in it's disembodied voice as it began to swing and strike his arms haphazardly against the bulwark that was All Might. The tables had turned only to be flipped once more.

"How long do you think you can protect that kid for? Huh! All Mi-" Tomura was cut off

"Ocean Freighter SMASH!"

Almost in an instant, Mirio had appeared right at Tomura's instep, his chiseled body uncoiling like a spring as he uppercut Tomura with almost the same force as the ship he had called out. The wiry man flew as though shot by a cannon, straight for the ceiling of the USJ. It looked as though he was going to become a splat on the giant rafters until a black cloud whisked him away from his gruesome demise. Kurogiri now stood around 100 meters, looking as menacingly he could with his leader draped over his shoulder. Tomura clenched his jaw, screaming like a 5 year old having a root canal drilled at the dentist.

"Sorry I'm late once again!" Mirio apologized to the group, still giving a cartoonish smile.

"AAAAaaGH! YOU LiTtLe . . . AAAAAAAH! YOU BROKE MY JAW-AAAAAH!" Kurogiri had now let the pouting Tomura down on to the ground, the man child laying there and smacking his legs into the ground in pain. "Kuh- Agh! KILL HIM, NOMU! KILL THE SYMBOL OF PEACE!"

Nomu screeched and raised his fists once again, preparing to break All Might's guard, only for the almighty Symbol of Peace to punch back while the monster's guard was open. All Might placed another punch at its solar plexus.

"Kuh, if my one hundred percent can't damage you, I guess I'll have to give you A THOUSAND PERCENT!" All Might declared as his fists became a blur. Soon enough, each punch was impossible to distinguish from each other! Then tiny sonic booms began to concuss as the air was rent with the force of his fists!

"PLUUUUUUSS ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAA!" And with a final uppercut, the indomitable Nomu was sent flying through the great domed roof of the USJ. All Might panted heavily, wiping blood from his lips as his signature smile met Tomura's pouting frown. The blue haired psychopath clutched his jaw, barely remembering to keep a single finger off his face, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes as he ranted.

"They said he was weakening! Lies! He cheated! ALL LIES! DOES THIS LOOK WEAK TO YOU, KUROGIRI?" Tomura screamed through clenched teeth. Kurogiri biologically couldn't look sheepish, but his writhing fog did deflate slightly to his credit.

"He looks like he's tiring, maybe we can finish him off?" Kurogiri proposed.

"I can't fight like THIS! We're DONE! We're LEAVING!" Tomura shrieked in pain. Kurogiri took a moment, shrugged, and then opened a portal for the two to escape.

"You're not going anywhere!" Bakugo charged after them, letting loose a brutal explosion at the receding mist of their escape. Katsuki cussed, per usual.

Seconds later the rest of the pro heroes arrived.

* * *

Izuku woke up in bandages. He looked around to see the familiar nurse's office of U.A. High, the same place he was treated back . . . back when he failed his hero course exam. Here he was again, a quirkless loser who had been nothing but a burden. Wait! What happened at the USJ? Did his classmates make it out alright? He tried to sit up only to find that his arms had been plaster cast in front of him. They ached. He ached. His whole body ached. He laid back in exasperation. Didn't Recovery Girl heal him the last time he ended up here? Did that mean that he had broken his arms so irreparably that she couldn't heal him?

Izuku didn't know how long he lay there, stewing in his own thoughts and theories. For all knew, he could have been one of the lucky ones that survived that villain attack. That thought scared him the most; that he may have lived when actual heroes to be had died. He could't put a value or a price to the fear he felt at those thoughts.

"You sure mumble fast, Midoriya," the frank voice of Asui Tsuyu broke the clouds of his pondering. Izuku could barely make out her form through the curtain that separated their medical beds. She laid on her side, her right arm in a soft cast and draped across the bed. She pulled the curtain back.

"S-sorry! I didn't think that there would be other people in here!" It was difficult to move his arms, but he bowed his head slightly in apology.

"It's OK. They were wondering if you were going to wake up. I was starting to get bored being all alone in here." She replied with her usual composure.

"W-what happened?"

"Well, they said that you shattered pretty much every bone up to your elbows,"

"No, I didn't mean that! What happened at the USJ?"

"Well, I don't know everyone's story, but it's pretty clear we all got teleported to different simulations. I ended up with Mineta and Kaminari at the flood zone. It was kind of funny actually. I don't think the villains took our quirks into account because we just kind of kicked Kaminari into the water and after he zapped all the water bound villains we ran for the center plaza. They beat up Eraser Head really badly, I think he's in the faculty hospital a floor above us. Anyway, we almost got caught by the lead villain guy and he almost dissolved my arm. That's why I'm here anyway." She held up her cast. Izuku winced.

"A-are you going to be ok?"

" . . . That's really something coming from the guy with jello for bones right now." Tsuyu gave him an even stare, her features not betraying how incredulous she was at his question. She hefted her cast. "I'll be all right, Recovery Girl says it will probably need surgery if it doesn't heal back in the next few days. 'Kind of hard to regrow something that isn't there' and all that. Anyway, let's see . . . they dragged me back after that, so I don't know a whole lot about the rest of the story. Apparently All Might and this third year named Mirio showed up and kicked some villain butt. They almost lost though. The school is gonna do a press conference or something to give details tonight."

Izuku bit his lips in thought. Villain attacks were virtually non existent at U.A. and it was chilling to think that the attack was almost successful. If the public was going to be informed then there would be backlash against the school and its staff. Izuku hated himself for thinking it, but he smelled a profit brewing, and his gut was telling him to go get a piece.

"You sure you don't want to know what the doctors said about your arms?" Tsuyu asked, eyeing his casts and almost flinching. Izuku was broke from his thoughts once again.

"Oh. No, I think I'll wait for Recovery Girl to give me a diagnosis. I don't want to think about it more than I have to, you know?" Izuku smiled weakly, trying to keep a positive outlook. He dared not think about what sort of medical issues or handicaps his arms may pose down the road. At least, not yet.

The two passed the time with idle chatter for at least another hour before recovery girl finally stepped into her office. She had just been upstairs patching and bandaging Professor Aizawa; the man had taken a healing kiss, but was still very much out of commission and would be for some time. She took her time up there, dreading coming down to talk to the green haired boy. She gave him a small hello and then walked over to Tsuyu. After checking a few vitals and peeling back her cast she tutted affirmatively.

"It looks like disintegration didn't make it to the bone. I don't think you'll need surgery. You are a very lucky young lady. Get plenty of rest, eat well, drink lots of fluids and then come see me in a couple of days. You may go." Tsuyu smiled slightly at her release, but gave a straight faced good bye to Izuku as she left the office.

Recovery Girl wearily pulled a seat up to Izuku's cot and began busying her fingers changing different minor bandages.

"You, on the other hand, are lucky to be alive right now," She finally spoke. She didn't know the details of how the boy was injured, but the students the boy had saved felt that it had something to do with that support item that he had discharged. She had passed the electronic hammer and the boy's shoes on to Power Loader to confirm the theory. There was a pause for a small while until Izuku finally broke the silence.

"Um, how bad is it?"

" . . . Your arms were bleeding internally when they brought me to you, you almost lost circulation; which could have either killed you, or ruined the tissues in your arms. I'll spare you the details but your bones up to just before your elbows were in very small pieces, not to mention some crack ribs, a partial concussion, and a near overdose on pain medication." Izuku flinched with every diagnosis "I've done what I can with my quirk, but your body needs to replenish itself before I can heal you any more. I'd say that I need to keep you in those casts for at least a week or two until I can heal you the rest of the way."

Izuku wasn't sure he was hearing her correctly. He had just turned his bones to dust, and she said he would be back to normal in a week or two?

"Wait, won't there be any permanent damage? Those injuries sound pretty serious." He asked, incredulous and wide eyed.

"Your body is still young and full of life, young Izuku. My quirk works well with that. But don't think that you can just go out and break every bone in your body, deary. If you come to me for help too often, your cells will start to fatigue and more permanent damage will stick around." She offered him a loli pop, but he couldn't take it with his arms the way they were. She unwrapped it and popped it into his still open mouth.

"Oh, and I almost forgot, your mother is here; she was here earlier, but she wanted to speak with 'management' while you were still sleeping. Not that I blame her, if my kids were hurt at a school function I would probably put someone in the hospital and then nurse them back to health." Recovery girl chuckled at her own joke as Izuku blanched. He knew that his Mom would punch out All Might if it meant keeping him safe, but that still didn't make him feel great about her coming to school to possibly do just that. Knowing her, she probably had called a week off from work to nurse him back to health.

After Recovery Girl finished changing his bandages, Izuku asked if she could get him his phone. She obliged him and then retreated to a desk near the door of the medical wing. After some awkward maneuvering, the green haired businessman discovered that he could use his nose to navigate his touch screen. He had several missed calls from his mother, and Kakusa. Then there were texts from a bunch of his 1-A classmates including Katsuki (who called him a little shit, and threatened to kill him if he did anything stupid like that again), as well as from Hatsume Mei (who had simply repeated 'sorry' with a crying emoji), and oddly enough he had a text message from his classmate Dick (who said 'sucks to be you, hope you get well soon.')

He was in the process of scrunching his face in confusion while reading the last text when the doors to the infirmary were opened forcefully. Izuku jumped, expecting to see his irate mother charging to his side, but was surprised to be met with the excavator styled mask of Power Loader. The Excavation Hero hefted the familiar Doomsday Hammer with one hand and all but shoved it in young Midoriya's face.

"You recognize this?" the pro hero's gruff tenor resonated out of his mask.

Izuku gulped, and nodded. Judging by the support course professor's hunched shoulders and wrathful visage, Izuku knew he was in trouble.

"THIS," he somehow managed to only lightly jab Izuku's forehead with the dangerous contraption, "IS." He prodded the poor boy again "ILLEGAL. TO USE. WITHOUT. A LICENSE! Heck, even with a license I wouldn't have trusted a device like this right out of the gate without testing it!"

At this point Recovery Girl had recovered from the shock of the dirty hero charging through her office.

"That's no way to speak to a patient, Majima!" She shuffled over. Power Loader didn't even stop to acknowledge her as he continued to grill Izuku.

"Hatsume made this didn't she, Midoriya?" he continued.

Izuku shrank in the man's gaze, but nodded meekly.

"Figures," Power Loader drew back, still angry but quieting slightly, putting his hands on his hips and still ignoring Recovery Girl as she practically screamed for his attention. "I'm going to ban her from the development studio if she's going to try and build gadgets this dangerous."

"N-no! Sir, it was my fault for using the Doomsday Hammer without proper supervision. She just wanted me to test it in a safe environment; if she had known about the villains, she would have never-" Izuku sprung up to defend his partner, only to be cut off.

"Don't try to defend her. She's going to get someone seriously injured if she doesn't learn from this." Power Loader fired off, adding "You're lucky to even _have_ arms after today. No. No. She'll be lucky to use the facilities by the end of the school term."

"All term? Sir, I don't think she could survive . . . " Izuku mumbled, racking his brain to find a reason to keep his project partner out of trouble. Wait.

"Wait! We have a project together, Sir. She will need to be able to help me finish-"

"I can put you with another group," Power Loader hand waved.

"But sir! The deadline is in a few days; I don't think I could contribute enough for credit with anyone else. A-and we've almost already finished the project, Mei and I. A-and-"

" . . . " Power Loader studied Izuku's face as the poor boy practically started begging on behalf of the pink haired support specialist. He was pretty sure Midoriya could have gotten on his knees in dogeza, he would have.

The tip of a cane sharply dug into his ribs!

"WHAT PART OF VISITING HOURS ARE OVER DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, YOU METALHEAD?" Recovery Girl twisted her cane violently as he put up his hands in defeat, and then began shoo-ing the excavation hero out of the infirmary.

"I'll think about it!" Power Loader called to Izuku as the door was forced shut. Izuku was again left in peace and quiet as he waited for his mom. Again, using his nose he navigated himself back to the texting app on his phone. It took some time, but he finally managed to get a text sent to Kakusa: "Short sell - all UA faculty, expect 5-10%."

He felt like dirt as he nudged the send button.

* * *

 **I honestly don't know how I feel about the resolution of this arc for Izuku. I don't know if I made it climactic enough for your tastes. He is, for all intents and purposes, quirkless, so without extreme training and tools he would be hard pressed to hold up against pretty much any villain. So I guess it was realistic in that he was lucky to survive in the first place. I'm debating whether I should include him in the sports festival, just because I don't want this story to be a rebrand of the canon, but I also intend for Izuku to become a hero in some way or another. Let's be honest, who would want to be just an ordinary business major when you can be Batman?**

 **Also, the doomsday hammer is kind of a fun little idea that I had, based off of some of Nikolai Tesla's doomsday device theories, but I don't know if it will make a debut for a while; mostly because I, were I Power Loader, wouldn't let a student without an iron constitution within 20 feet of Hatsume Mei's gadgetry, let alone use one. Izuku will probably work with her in the future anyway, because mad science is cool.**

 **As always let me know if you catch any typos or have any comments or concerns. I am still very much a review whore; honestly, who doesn't like feedback on their work?**


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